‘Wow’ transports you from the mundane into remembering there is a much bigger picture out there.
One of my most effective actions that helps me think more creatively is harnessing the wow factor that is all around us.
Finding things that make me go ‘Wow’ or ‘Amazing’ reminds you of almost magical things. It transports you from the mundane into remembering there is a much bigger picture out there. And when you come back to your own life everything seems much more in perspective and your thinking is clearer.
I’ll share some of my Wow things with you:
- The wonder of Pi. It’s a mathematical constant that, when you sit down and think about it, is mind boggling. The dry, factual definition of Pi is that it is the ratio of the circumference of any circle to the diameter of that circle. Then the first mind tickler is that regardless of the circle’s size, this ratio will always equal Pi. Follow that up with the idea that its decimal form never ends, it carries on forever. Nor are its numbers ever repetitive (like 1.666)! It’s irrational quite literally and amazing the more you think on it.
- The night sky: When life is getting all too complicated or stressful I’ll jump in my car and drive to the top of a hill with no light pollution around (much easier since I moved to North Wales). I’ll then get out, lie on my car bonnet (bit of a clamber since I got my 4X4) and lie there looking at the star constellations. With very little effort I then think how small and inconsequential Earth is compared to the universe (thank you Nasa for making this an easy thing to picture). Then I consider that the light I can see from the nearest star to us (apart from the sun – Proxima Centauri) is 4 years old – I am seeing light that, in our terms, started off from the star in 2019. And then, what makes my head spin, is that the furthest star that telescopes can see is 9 billion light years away. It’s almost impossible to comprehend the time scale, it’s older then the earth has existed for.
- Flames in a fire: This will seem an odd one considering I was hit by a fireball however I’ve always found the flames from fire mesmerising (train crash fireball was just excruciatingly painful so ignore that one). How can something that can be benign (warmth, cooking aid, light) at the same time be so destructive (house fires, fireballs, forest fires). It dances as if alive. It can be ‘killed’ by a lack of oxygen or dousing with water yet fuelled by accelerants. If you’re sat staring into a log or coal fire there’s a strong urge to reach out and touch it – or there is with me even today – but knowing you’ll be severely burnt by it.
- Our Atmosphere. Getting back above earth there’s the atmosphere that protects us from the vacuum of space that’s another wow for me. It is only about 60 miles thick! That’s not a large margin that enables us to exist. And then you consider that the Northern Lights (aurora borealis) are energized particles from the sun which slam into Earth’s upper atmosphere at speeds of up to 45 million mph it’s a wonder that such a thin covering keeps us safe.
It would be easy to say that we haven’t got time to think about these things, especially the big things, that don’t have a day to day affect on our lives, but I think it limits us if we don’t find time. It needn’t be all the time but stopping, now and then, to consider or think about these sort of things I find energizes my day to day.
It stops me from being stooped with my nose to the grind stone focussing only on the things that directly impact my own life. It also calms and de-stresses me which puts me back into a creative frame of mind and pushes the mundane back into perspective.
Think beyond, far beyond, and marvel at large things difficult to comprehend because it then makes our personal impossible entirely possible.
Tell me, what makes your mind boggle?
