Chase the sublime

David Foster Wallace’s “This Is Water” opens with a parable: two young fish swim past an older fish who asks, “How’s the water?” The young fish keep swimming. Eventually, one turns to the other: “What the hell is water?”

Most people sleepwalk through their lives. They’re not bad people. They’re just not awake. The commute, the routine, the familiar - these become invisible. The world keeps offering beauty, and they keep missing it because they stopped paying attention somewhere around age twenty-five.

Dacher Keltner’s research at Berkeley has transformed our understanding of awe. It’s not just a pleasant feeling - it’s physiologically significant. Experiences of awe reduce inflammatory cytokines, activate the vagus nerve, and literally slow the subjective experience of time. People who regularly experience awe report higher life satisfaction, greater generosity, and less materialism. Awe isn’t self-indulgence. It’s maintenance for the soul.

But here’s the thing: awe doesn’t arrive passively. You have to create the conditions for it. You have to slow down enough to notice. You have to be willing to be surprised - and that requires loosening your grip on the plan.

The best opportunities come sideways. This is Taleb’s insight about serendipity: you can’t plan for it, but you can increase your surface area for it. Put your work where people can find it. Say yes to the unexpected invitation. Follow the conversation that feels alive even if it’s not “relevant.” The offhand comment that changes your direction. The stranger who becomes a collaborator. These aren’t distractions from the meaningful life - they’re often how meaning finds you.

Rick Rubin talks about the creative process as a kind of attention: being awake to patterns trying to reveal themselves. Most people are too busy executing their plan to notice that reality is offering better options. The plan becomes a prison. Openness is what sets you free.

This doesn’t mean being passive. You still aim. You still act. But in the adjustment phase, you hold those loosely enough to let reality inform them. That unexpected reaction to your work isn’t noise - it’s feedback. That random connection isn’t distraction - it might be the door you’ve been looking for.

The adjustment mechanism for engaging with the world is simple: stay awake. Notice what’s working. Notice what’s surprising. Follow the thread that feels alive, even when it leads somewhere you didn’t expect. Treat serendipity as data, not deviation.

When was the last time you felt genuine awe? Not the Instagram version - actual, stop-you-in-your-tracks wonder. If you can’t remember, that’s diagnostic. You haven’t lost the capacity for awe. You’ve just buried it under busyness.

Today, go outside. Look up. Put your phone in your pocket. Notice what’s actually there - the light, the air, the enormity of the sky. It sounds trivial. It isn’t. The practice of noticing is the practice of being alive.

What’s trying to get your attention that you’ve been ignoring?