How Awe is Fundamental to Our Joy and Happiness [Paris]

How Awe is Fundamental to Our Joy and Happiness [Paris]

Arti Harchekar

When we went to Paris last year, our son was about 15 months old. He had just started to walk and was only expressing himself in a handful of ways. Mainly with screams to generate laughter and “oooo's" to express delight. During our first couple of weeks in Paris, we decided to take morning walks to the most notable parks in the City. One morning, we went to the Jardin des Plants. I was so excited to see the rows of bright, manicured flowers. Jashan was excited to chase the water shooting out of the sprinklers. We were surprised and charmed by the outdoor zoo embedded within the park. I typically don’t like zoos, but this was different. The animals were in a more natural setting, the fences were lower and the animals felt closer. The most incredible animal was the white leopard. My husband and I gazed in amazement at the muscular structure of this animal that we could see so closely. We kept saying “wow” to express our awe as it paced before us. Within seconds Jashan started to say “wow” to express his own awe and wonder. This was the first time and it was so magical. A week later, we were strolling and passed a sightline of the Pantheon down Rue Sufflot. As we were passing, Jashan said “wow" and pointed directly to the Pantheon. It stopped me in my tracks. He associated "wow" with awe and expressed awe through architecture within the built environment. Architecture that challenged his present understanding of the world. Astonishing! But how and why? 

What is awe and why do we experience it? Lani Shiota, an associate professor at Arizona State University, explains that awe is a fundamental part of being human. It makes our bodies and minds more receptive to new information, new experiences, and life’s deeper meaning. Awe is an emotional response to extraordinary conceptual or physical stimuli that challenge our normal day-to-day existence and are not integrated into our understanding of the world. Awe can be elicited by people, nature, art, architecture, music, and religious experiences. It is a necessary human emotion that has helped us evolve as a species. It strengthens our social bonds, makes us kinder and more generous to others, and fosters a sense of curiosity about our world. Shared moments of awe helped our ancestors shift towards collaboration improving our odds of survival. When we experience awe, our focus is outward as opposed to inward and there is a shrinking of our ego and self-importance. Experiences that challenge our existing understanding evoke a desire to explore and seek out new knowledge.

The most vivid memories I have of Jashan expressing awe within our Parisian neighborhood were when we were in public open spaces. People innately need to be connected to natural open places. When we are within a three-minute walk, we use them. They are breaks of warm, sunny light and fresh air within a dense, urban fabric. Within these spaces, we find joy in unobstructed movement and awe in nature. We also find joy in the abundance and variety of accessible open spaces. 

From our apartment in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, we were within a three-minute walk of two greens, one small public plaza, one pocket green, one pedestrian plaza, one shared street, and the Seine. A thirty-minute walk put us in touch with larger parks that are more widely spread throughout the City. Traveling north from our apartment would take us through Square Gabriel-Pierné for a morning croissant and fun in a tiny play area, then to the Seine to be amazed by the bicycles, and lastly across the river and east into the Jardin des Tuileries to be awed by the ducks at the pond and our dancing shadows. Traveling south from our apartment we would pick up our croissant along Rue de Buci and head to the garden of Église de Saint Germain des Prés to watch the pigeons, then stop for sandwiches and pastries at Maison Mulot, continue along Rue de Tournon to Le Jardin du Luxembourg to enjoy our treats at the stunning Fontaine Médicis, and finally share in the wonder and laughter of children playing with boats and riding on carousels. The animals, fountains, and boats seemed to astonish Jashan the most. These expressions of awe are truly magical because they do not happen often and are not constant. 

Why is awe important? As I mentioned earlier, awe prompts us to think in more self-transcendent ways, shifting our focus from inward concern to an outward sense of universality and connectedness. By making us less focused on the self, we are more in tune with the present moment. Awe has the ability to boost our own individual well-being. Experiences of awe appear to increase our life satisfaction, reduce our stress levels, make us less materialistic and thus more focused on experiences, and even give us an expanded sense of time. Awe allows us to grow and change rapidly and see what is important in life.

In Hardwiring Happiness, Dr. Rick Hanson explains that happiness produces significant activation patterns within the brain. So what would happen if we designed environments that fired that happiness pattern over and over again? As designers, can we take advantage of the power of neuroplasticity? Our brains react more strongly to negative experiences than to positive ones. If our positive experiences are intense enough, novel enough, occur often enough, and if we direct our focused attention to them long enough, then we can strengthen our brain’s happiness neural pathways and therefore make it easier to feel positive emotions.

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