Awe
On not putting the awe back in awesome
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Dear Bolu,
What awes you? A long time ago, I watched a talk (if it’s a talk, you can be certain it’s TED; he’s always on about something) about “putting the awe back in awesome”. The speaker’s message, if my memory serves me well enough, was that we’ve grown accustomed to describing ordinary—and at best, non-extraordinary things as “awesome”, and that has diminished the significance of the word and the great expectations that should naturally accompany its usage. “Did you sleep well?” “Yes, I slept like a baby!” “Wow, that’s awesome”. “Seriously, Toonday? Please tell me what makes it awesome” “Well, you know…it’s the fact that…uhm…I mean…to me…everything you do…is…awesome”. Nice save, yes, but you get the point. We use the word “awesome” without being awed by what we’re describing. The speaker’s call was for us to reserve “awesome” for truly awe-inspiring and breathtaking things. We should stop casually inserting it into phrases and sentences as a mere exciting substitute for “good”, “cool”, and so forth.
When I heard that talk, it made a lot of sense to me. Put the awe back in awesome, Toonday. Use the word to describe only truly spectacular things. I resolved to live and speak in obedience to the message. It was a long time ago, and I was still passionate about my pursuits, so I’m sure I obeyed for a while. I’m sure. But I probably didn’t adhere for too long. Why? I can’t say. But I suppose there’s something to be said about how hard it is to follow through with lessons we’ve picked up from books, talks, shows, and podcasts. We find this resource that details brilliantly, the solution to a problem; the exposition of a wonderful idea; a perspective worth the experience of a lifetime; and we resonate with it. We digest it. We understand it. We grasp it as firmly as we can, but it slips through our fingers like dry sand on the beach in no time. Why? I can’t say. But I wonder.
What awes you? I’m asking, genuinely. What wows you? When I try to answer that question, a few things come to mind. First, “awe” is relative. Suppose I showed you an old clip of David De Gea pulling off a remarkable double save against Arsenal. In that case, you may not appreciate his awesomeness. You may think it is ordinary. Why? It could be that you don’t understand the difficulty involved in responding quickly to rapid-fire shots. Or you’ve seen your fair share of extraordinary goalkeeper saves, and this one simply doesn’t compare. Lastly, it could be that you’ve seen the clip a million times, and it doesn’t awe you as much as it did on first viewing. And those are the three reasons we may call ordinary, what others call awesome—we don’t understand it; we’ve seen much better; we’ve seen it a million times.
Another thing that comes to mind is that “awe” is not always relative. There are a few things you can bank on that’d awe anybody. Okaay okaay, maybe not “anybody”, but most people, including myself, would find them awesome. One of such things is the scale of the universe. Oh. You know those images? Or videos? The ones that contrast how tiny our planet is relative to all else that is out there? They amaze me. It’s not so much the visual that I find awesome as it is the accompanying realisation that we are quite literally small. Each viewing experience does come with the risk of slipping involuntarily into an existential crisis but I’ve managed myself quite well so far. So far. You know something else? Views from high altitudes generally have a way of awing us. If I climbed atop a really high mountain or the rooftop of a skyscraper, I’d likely feel some level of awe. I’m inclined to think the scale of such visage gets to us. In our everyday lives, we usually don’t get to see too far forward before we’re met by obstructions—walls, doors, buildings, and indeed, other people. We could choose to look up, but then we’d only see the same sky we’ve seen a thousand times before—awesome-less, except perhaps when it’s starry or revealing of some colourful, uncommon solar object. When we’re high up, however, we see the world around and below us at a very different scale. Our view is unobstructed, and the air is cleaner. We feel separate from and above the plane and perspective we’re used to. We see the vastness we know exists but are usually blind to. We’re awed by what we see—this view that stretches farther than we can see and magnifies our littleness. And I hope you get the chance, if you haven’t already, to enjoy such views—not once or twice but many, many times.
What awes you? It wouldn’t hurt if you told me. I wonder if people know in the moment that what they’ve created or achieved is awesome. Do you think they do? I’m not sure that’s even a good question. Awe, as I’ve already laid out, is subjective. You could create something most people consider truly awesome and think it very ordinary. Similarly, you could achieve something very ordinary and think it is awesome. Subjective. Nonetheless, sometimes, it seems that people who’ve achieved truly remarkable things often recognise—in the moment or immediately after—that they’ve done something truly awesome. I watched Tobi Amusan’s reaction after her unbelievable performance at the World Athletics Championships, and I could tell that she was also quite awed by what she’d done. It was beautiful. She knew. The whole world knew. It was awesome.
By the way, I feel some disdain for the word “awesome”. The presence of “some” in it makes it sound incomplete—like it’s not “full of” or “replete with” awe. There’s just “some” awe, and that’s not good enough. I tried to think of a better alternative, but nothing really made sense. In fact, my most brilliant suggestion was aweful, so imagine how bad the others were.
What awes you? Most of the “awesome” things I’ve described so far seem very generic, and you may, in fact, also consider them awesome. You may also have very personal examples of awesome experiences that you’ve had—experiences that are not easily replicable or simply stand out. I have one. Although my sister was the awed party in this arrangement, not me, it remains one of my most precious memory orbs.
“Brother Toonday”, she’d say to me—”brother”, not because I was leading a consecrated life but because it was how we addressed older siblings at home. It was a way of showing respect. I was in my early teens, and she was very much a kid, so “brother” was necessary. “Can you jog this raser?” By “jog”, she meant “juggle”, and by “raser” she meant “eraser”—in fact, she meant “erasers” because there were two of them. That was how the requests came. If it wasn’t a pair of erasers in her hands, it was a pair of pencils, pen covers, sharpeners, hair packers, sweets, anything she could get her hands on, and that’s a pretty long list. I suppose kids have a tendency to come into possession of the most unexpected items. Most times, I’d turn down her request because, well, I was busy, I suppose. The love letter to Jerseeker won’t write itself neither would the difficult GTA mission play itself. Oh, dear, what is it we do with our time? What did we ever do with it, dear friend? I know I responded harshly to her sometimes. Go away. Can’t you see I’m busy? But she would return with even more enthusiasm. In retrospect, I’m glad she always returned. I’ve learnt that we often don’t know what’s good for us—what we should spend time on and who we should spend time with if we’re not nudged or pestered. She would return, and I would oblige her request.
She loved to see me juggle objects. She loved it so much, and that marvels me to date because I can’t juggle—at least not in the real sense. Proper juggling requires you to throw and catch at least three objects, but I could only manage two, which is very easy. Try it. It’s ridiculous how unimpressive my juggling skills were and, in fact, still are. But she always lapped it up. She jumped. She screamed. She was happy. She wanted more. Then, I found it rather amusing, but now I think it beautiful. I imagine that she was just as awed by my amateur juggling display as I would be if I saw someone juggle several hiltless, double-edged swords while standing on one foot on a ledge 50 floors above the ground with their eyes closed and pepper in their mouth. She was awed by a very ordinary thing. If she’d known the word “awesome”, she may have used it to describe my juggling skills. And given what I know now, dear friend, I don’t think I would tell her that her “awesome” was lacking in “awe”.
Fin.
P.S.
Awe by Asá is the song after which this letter is titled. It’s Yoruba and pronounced as “her-way”. I only took the name out of the song, but I had fun with it. Subsequent letters would be titled and themed after songs as well so…
P.P.S.
I’ve been away for a while without notice. It’s just…the thing is…I just…I’m…sorry.
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Write you soon, merci!
- Wolemercy