Awe is Individual and Sublime – How Can We Find it for Ourselves?

Have you ever wondered why some people are happy simply viewing a mountain, whilst others need to climb it, gritting their teeth the whole way? Turns out we’re all chasing the same thing, awe, and Brendan’s been exploring exactly how to dial in the right amount.

‘I need to give you both a hug’, I said to Johanna and Seb upon reaching Ala Kul Lake, a 3,500m high glacial lake nestled in the Tian Shen range in Kyrgyzstan.

‘I think I need one too’, replied Seb breathlessly, the altitude had chosen him as its main victim.

We’d known each other for 48 hours but were bonded by the 1,500m elevation gained and screensaver-worthy vistas.

Ala Kul looking very cool

A landmark 2003 paper by Dachner Keltner and Jonathan Haidt suggested that awe has two characteristics: perceived vastness and a need for accommodation.

Perceived vastness comes from observing something physically or theoretically large. Think the Grand Canyon or being in the presence of Jane Goodall. If something violates our normal understanding of the world, then it requires a need for accommodation. In other words, if something so completely exceeds our expectations it alters the way we look at the world.

The clearest example I have heard of awe is from those who have looked upon Earth from space. Scott Kelly, who was on the International Space Station for a year, describes the shift in empathy,

‘And then you realise looking at the Earth, that despite its beauty and its tranquillity, there’s a lot of hardship and conflict that goes on. You look at the planet without borders, [and] it looks like we are all part of one spaceship, Spaceship Earth.’

While only a few people experience this effect, all of us can find awe by testing where our boundary is between simple fun and genuine adventure. This is called threat-based awe, which requires some level of fear to be endured for there to be a payoff.

Other causes of awe that can be found through adventure include collective effervescence (shared experiences) and nature. After travelling for seven weeks with varying combinations of threats and groups, I found the perfect level of challenge with the right people in.

*Insert that quote from Into the Wild*

The Testing Phase

The first test was on a fancy Highlights of Mt Blanc tour with my Mum. This experience had the incredible scenery part covered, it featured countless palatial valleys and glacial lakes.

Yet, when another tour member named Matt gave the perfect speech at the final dinner, ending with ‘I may forget all the names of the mountains, but I will remember each and every one of you’, I remained surprisingly unmoved. As a reference point, on the plane over I cried watching Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. III (saving the universe through friendship!).

Touring around the beauty of Mt Blanc

I learned later that it was because the walk didn’t provide me with the hardship that it did for the others. One woman had undergone a double hip replacement, another had torn her Achilles a few years ago, while my mum was wracked with anxiety in the leadup over whether her body would make it through.

For me, it was more Type 1 fun, there was no huge relief payoff when I reached each pass, nor from dunking my feet in icy rivers at the end of the day. I was also ahead of the group for most of the time, due to my stubbornly unwavering walking pace. This isn’t a boast at all, I was half the age of most others in the group.

Another experience, weeks later, featured the complete absence of people to share it with – a solo two-night walk to Kol Ukok Lake in Kyrgyzstan. I made it to an amphitheatre of mountains at 3,500m, accessible only by a tough scramble over ankle-swallowing rocks.

It was a major relief to pop over a waterfall and be greeted by a lake brimming with melted glacial waters that flowed into the valley I had come through. I walked to the other side of the lake where there was almost complete silence, except for the occasional flutter of these tiny shore birds who looked like winter plovers in the snow.

I was immensely satisfied with my efforts, and content with my own company, but I could not hug the birds. An echoed ‘cooee’ around the amphitheatre had to do with the illusion of camaraderie. The challenge element was covered, but there was no one to share it with.

*Slaps top of alpine lake* This bad boy can fit so many cooees in it

The Sum of Awe

I was incredibly lucky two weeks earlier, on arriving at my hostel in a small town called Karakol, to join a tour, of sorts. With my bag still clamped to my waist, a familiar accent quipped ‘Where you from?’. The classic hostel question from which all others follow.

‘Sydney’, I replied, followed by, ‘nice blunnies’.

The Blundstones belonged to Seb from Adelaide, who noticed my GWS Giants shorts. We quickly commiserated on our shared preliminary final losses in the preceding days, him being a Carlton fan.

I asked him and his two mates where they were off to, and he said they were headed for a stroll up a hill behind town.

Later that night another person joined us, and we decided to all do a trek together.

I first got to know Johanna, a 24-year-old German with the kindest heart. She told me of her aspirations to work in the mental health of the elderly, and I can’t imagine anyone better suited. Her calm positivity never wavered through bouts of vomiting and bottomless bowls of lentil soup as the only vegetarian Kyrgyz-cuisine option.

Another 24-year-old, Camille from France, was a sweetheart hidden under a layer of coolness. Like the time my nephew first tried ice cream, there was initial trepidation followed by extreme appreciation. At one point near the end of the first day of the trek, we both stopped to look over a valley. I stopped to say, ‘How good is walking?’ and he shot straight back, ‘It’s fucking great!’.

I’d echo ‘Iz fugging gret!’ back to him throughout our time together.

Sam, a 22-year-old Englishman, had the exuberance and adventurous spirit of, well, a 22-year-old. Rather than making me feel old, it made me feel youthful that I could keep up with a young climber and his accompanying rig.

These were my type of people. Relentlessly positive. Full of care. Comfortable in their weirdness in a way that took me 30 years to reach.

Awe-inspiring places + inspiring-awe people = golden memories | @karinamaree

At our very first yurt camp pit stop, the local Kyrgyz put the song Voyage Voyage on some speakers next to us. It turned into a dance party, an adjacent flowing river replaced the buzz of a crowd – the snow-covered peaks were our disco balls.

On reaching the lake, seeing its vastness and cobalt blue, I had a silent cry, unnoticed by the others. It wasn’t sadness, it wasn’t even really happiness, just an outpouring of emotion.

Part of this emotion was the relief of having a well-deserved break. The previous section was the steepest section of walking I had ever done, with the addition of a pack and being above 3,000m.

The feeling of vulnerability added to the smallness of seeing a mountain-fenced lake.

When we were walking around the lake, going from 3,500m to the pass at 4,000m, it was an experience of contradictions, small in the vastness but also walking together and encouraging each other through the thinning air.

At one point, we stopped to take in the view and a breath, and I said I felt like singing a hymn. Later Seb told me he thought I was joking, but upon hearing my rendition of Be Thou My Vision he felt like he was having a religious experience. We would not have felt this level of awe if we weren’t with each other.

Choose Your Own Adventure

The main point of all this is that there’s nothing inherently wrong with choosing a guided tour.

While studies have shown that the causes of awe are relatively universal, within this, individuals will have different people they’re compatible with, different preferences for natural vastness, and most importantly, different thresholds of what provides them with threat.

What evokes wonder in your best friend might not hit the same for you | @winniestubbs

For example, on my final Kyrgyz trek, I stayed a couple of nights in a mountain hut at 3,300m. On the first day, I ascended 1,200m up to the hut, where I was welcomed by six grizzled Russians who had been ice-climbing up a narrow chute that day and were already hitting the vodka.

In my tired and dehydrated state, the vodka was equally as unappealing as ice climbing. Their threshold for danger and physical exertion was well above mine, just as mine was above the group on the Highlights of Mt Blanc tour.

For example, one study found that people who stood among gigantic eucalyptus trees picked up more pens for an experimenter who had ‘accidentally’ dropped them than people who had stared at a large building.

In an increasingly individualistic world, awe makes us look up and be moved by the world around us. We owe it to ourselves and others to search for it.