Awe Key to Creativity & Joy

A new biography of Albert Einstein suggests that the key to his creativity was his 'childlike sense of awe and wonder.'

It occurs to me how many of us downplay this enlivening part of ourselves, that indeed, giving up on awe and wonder is why older people are most often older at heart. So if you truly want to be "young at heart," you'd do well to rekindle awe and wonder.

How to do this?

Consider, indeed revel in, the seen and unseen forces of nature. Give these things time, contemplative time. Remind yourself of your impending death, of the fleeting aspects of life and of life's aspects which seem to transcend time.

It all sounds hoaky, but then most of us are not building new windows to the world in our minds, as Einstein was, as Socrates and Galileo and Newton were. We are rather pedestrian schmoes in this realm, but that doesn't mean that some deep dabbling there wouldn't do us and those we know some good.

The bonus is that we'd have more fun, too. Childlike, not childish. In this culture, perhaps in all cultures, we could use less of the childish and more of the childlike.

And more awe and wonder.