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Slice #8: Finding Awe in Stories and Sunsets
14 Plays6 months ago
In this episode, the host dives into a transformative conversation with Vicky, a content creator and thinker whose approach to frameworks, creativity, and awe inspires a new way of seeing the world. They discuss the roles books and poetry play in expanding our mental horizons and how language shapes reality, often revealing unseen layers of experience. With references to Carlo Rovelli's physics insights and Monet’s relentless creativity, Vicky unpacks how breaking our frames can deepen our understanding and guide us in a world focused too much on productivity.
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Transcript
Introduction to Awe and Wonder with Vicky
00:00:21
Speaker
What's up fellow humans and welcome to a little slice of awe and wonder. I'm super excited to share this wide ranging conversation with an incredible content creator, multidisciplinary powerhouse and overall awesome human being Vicky. I'll link to your amazing content on clear thinking through frameworks in the show notes. So definitely check it out.
00:00:43
Speaker
and I met Vicki through an awesome online space she put together called Da Vinci Cafe, where intellectually curious minds come together to talk through interesting thought prompts and find creative solutions to problems. So the dialogue in the cafe, it's always been so incredibly rich and thought provoking and full of just sparks of awe and wonder.
00:01:04
Speaker
And this conversation was no different.
Experiencing Awe in Daily Life
00:01:07
Speaker
and We covered a ton of ground, including the awe experience from books, sunsets, and art, along with how awe is a pointer to our most authentic life path. So without further ado, please welcome Vicky to the podcast.
00:01:32
Speaker
Welcome, Vicky. So honored to have you on the podcast. Oh, thank you for having me. I can't wait to talk about all wonder. Where are you in the world right now, by the way? I am in Tokyo. It's autumn at last. So yeah, it's a good place to be.
00:01:49
Speaker
The autumn leaves in Tokyo, the koyo is amazing. but You were here for quite some time, right? I was last year for two years. um yeah If you have a chance to check it out, I don't know where you are in Tokyo, but I had my wedding at Hapouen.
00:02:07
Speaker
Yes, I have. I went there maybe a couple of years ago. Yeah. So it was really random. My brother-in-law lived across the street. And so we sort of stumbled upon this place. And we're just like, this is beautiful. It was right around this time, actually, in early November. It was like nice fall colors. A little chilly, but yeah it was really cool.
00:02:30
Speaker
Oh, man. Yeah, I mean, those the little gardens in Tokyo that just snap you out of the modern city into God knows where like those are the best parts of Japan, I feel like. It's amazing. There's this little saying for zen gardens where they'll have the stones and they'll place 12 stones, but you can only ever see 11 from any one
Japanese Aesthetics and Philosophy
00:02:57
Speaker
part.
00:02:57
Speaker
So really, is this philosophical point about not being able to see the whole picture from wherever you are? I think the Japanese aesthetics, the Japanese sensibility to beauty really is almost melancholy, which really fits the country. I think it really takes away all this Everything has to be awesome. Everything has to be good all the time. And it kind of catches you and say, oh, wait a second. You know, it's still beautiful when there isn't the last stone that you can see. And that's what I've come to appreciate a lot while living here. Melancholy is such a great word too. I feel like there's this kind of bittersweet quality yeah to a lot of it. And it's beautiful. Yeah. The changing seasons too. Like I think I heard somewhere that
00:03:47
Speaker
in Japanese music. They have the most references to season changes and how it connects to that melancholy feeling. Right. I've got a musician friend. I've got to ask him about it because he does a lot of his music related to season. Well, so oh yeah, there you go. Well, just a little background for everyone.
Vicky's Journey in Clear Thinking and Creativity
00:04:07
Speaker
Vicky is an incredible communicator, content creator with an awesome YouTube channel you should check out that discusses clear thinking and clear communication through frameworks and mental models.
00:04:18
Speaker
And one reason that I thought it would be so cool to talk to you was that your YouTube topic is actually connected to one of the eight wonders of the world in awe science. The eight wonders being music, life or death, spirituality, visual design, nature, collective movement, moral courage, and big ideas. So awe is connected, like we were talking about this in one of the Da Vinci cafes, but it's connected to this sense of vastness. But it's not just,
00:04:47
Speaker
vastness of nature. It could also be like a perceived vastness. So a big idea I think is something that connects you to this larger framework, this larger way of thinking. And so the way that you talk about frameworks for thinking really opens up to people, this larger aperture for what's going on in their life. I wonder if maybe there was a moment that started you on this path. What kind of got you into this space in the first place? Was there anything that sparked to that curiosity? Yeah, I think as a kid, I really love books in our household.
00:05:26
Speaker
You can't always get snacks, you can't always get this and that, but books, I can go in and my parents, my grandparents will buy me anything. From a very young age, I loved books and it was so cool to see things different from my immediate reality as a child. So there was one.
00:05:48
Speaker
book that talked about this fox with a very skinny waist. And it says, oh, the fox with the very skinny waist, you know, went on about its day. And then in the next moment, the waist snapped. And I was just like, what? The fox waist snapped. And as a child, I never thought that would be possible in a story. And that opened what was possible in storytelling, what was possible in life that Nothing had to make sense we can always make some sort of sense out of stories so from that moment on i realize i want to read more i i want to expand what i can see outside of my immediate very logical world.
00:06:33
Speaker
So that was probably the beginning of getting into ideas and really feeling the magneticism of them.
Books and Storytelling as Tools for Insight
00:06:42
Speaker
like can it It gives you a ah feeling that anything is possible, that we can make sense out of them. I think that was the really the beginning of it.
00:06:54
Speaker
That's so cool. such a Such a great anecdote. I don't know that story particularly, but I do remember a lot of stories as a kid. I feel like those parables and the fables that I read when I was a kid, they were actually really dark a lot of them. They have these really surprising dark moments in them. I think that's another thing. like like They break your framework. You sort of expect something and then something else happens.
00:07:21
Speaker
yeah I love that you mentioned that because now every single month I try to break my frame once, but really being conscious about, okay, I think this is how things work. So let me not do things the way I think it works and see what happens. Sometimes it really doesn't work, but other times I'm pleasantly surprised and realize some of my beliefs are and things that I thought was so dear to me actually didn't have to be that way. That's so cool. And that's something that on wonder.
00:07:52
Speaker
does it actually in the research is that when you feel on wonder you're less likely to hold on to ideology yeah so you know instead of this has to be this way on wonder sort of loosens your grip on those ideas books seem like such a great way to do that.
00:08:11
Speaker
It makes me feel like every single book there opens up new possibilities that I could decide whether I go down it or not. And what I've realized over the years is even if I don't go down you know one rabbit hole that for whatever reason I choose not to, they always circle back.
00:08:31
Speaker
in a different context and I remember ah this is related to this other idea so on the channel I do a lot of like connected note taking and that's one of the places I can get awe and wonder constantly because I just two separate ideas somehow in one moment in time I realize they're connected and it opens up a whole new world of what I could look up next Totally. Sometimes it's like you didn't even realize you're putting together a puzzle. like That's right. Find these two little pieces and they're like find a connection between them and then you realize that there's this bigger map. That's definitely a moment for me to kind of the little moment of insight.
00:09:15
Speaker
those little sparks of wonder definitely keep me going. I feel like there are little clues to the path, the path you should be on. Absolutely. Yeah. I think um one of the things I realized about our modern culture is, oh, you got to you know take the most efficient way to get somewhere. You have to optimize everything. And I used to think like that too, but now,
00:09:40
Speaker
having had these ideas connect from way in the past to very recently, I realized actually I am on the path.
Balancing Logic and Creativity
00:09:49
Speaker
I don't have to worry so much. They will connect when they connect and all I have to do is continue to enjoy, continue to notice things, continue to think through them and who knows where it'll lead me. I don't have to be so rushed. Do you have any examples of some connection that you made maybe from a book that helped you in real life or Yeah, i mean there are so many. So there's um internally, I've always been very logical, but also very creative. I was known as the creative one, the one who didn't think like everyone else, but at the same time, I was the one who loved math, I was the one who's into frameworks, which is very logical.
00:10:32
Speaker
And for the longest time, I couldn't bridge the two together. I felt like, oh, if I talk about the logical side, I have to hide the creative side because that didn't make sense. Or if I'm talking about the creative stuff, like the frameworks really didn't need to show up. And I was struggling with it. I just thought, OK, whatever, trust the process. Just keep going. And one day, this is not from a book, but one day a someone commented like, oh, you know, frameworks are very logical. And I realized, oh,
00:11:00
Speaker
No, they're not because they just give constraints so you can be very creative with it. It just helps you become more creative. And once I made that connection in books, there's one of my favorite books here, which is from this physicist, corl Carlos Rovelli. And he was saying, science is the most creative art that you can do because even though there's structure, there's so much possibilities and you balance the two together. And I was like,
00:11:31
Speaker
There's the connection. there's I can be creative and logical at the same time. In fact, that's probably the right place to be. And that's probably where everyone else is as well. We just have different degrees of logical thinking and creativity. And that gives us different output or different strength. But in the end, those two has to happen together. That was one of many realizations that made it a lot easier to be who I am and be okay with it.
00:11:58
Speaker
So cool. I think the future is for that, like, you know, before it was totally mutually exclusive, I feel the same way. Like, you know, I have have this logical side and this yeah creative side. It was hard to reckon with the two. In fact, my whole life has been switching back and forth with the two. And I'm finally sort of trying to figure out like, okay, maybe they're not mutually exclusive. Maybe they're actually kind of part of the same thing. And and there's some pathway in the middle. Carlo Revelli's book, I think it was The Order of Time,
00:12:27
Speaker
It really, that felt like it was a deeply scientific book, but it was
Awe and Perspective on Life
00:12:32
Speaker
so creative. It felt like reading Alice in Wonderland or something. And to me, it was like, wow, reality or what we know, it pales in comparison to what we don't know. Yeah.
00:12:44
Speaker
And I think that sort of attitude that you take towards, you know, everything, but science especially is really important. And there's some Einstein quote where he said, you know, there's two ways of living, one where nothing is a miracle and one where everything is a miracle. And it's like, you know, maybe they're both right in it, but it's so clear which one is a more joy giving way to live. Yeah, at the end,
00:13:12
Speaker
Humbleness has really made every day a joy. I do notice in myself that whenever I feel like there's still so much I don't know, like I love the way you described it, you know, that what we do know pales in comparison to what we don't know. And knowing that, hey, I won't be able to figure out everything, but there's so much I can be doing and I can be looking at.
00:13:38
Speaker
oh Really brings a stupid smile to my face. Well, that's definitely the all in wonder of big ideas. I think it just opens up the map more and more. yeah whenever I think of the Dunning-Kruger effect, where the people that think they're really smart or good at something usually aren't, and the ones that are more humble about it. It's because they've seen yeah how much they don't know. yeah And that seems to just grow in that the more you know, the more you realize that the map is bigger than you first imagined. So I think of like,
00:14:16
Speaker
I don't know if you play video games, but in Zelda or some game, you know you start in some world and you're like, oh, I figured out this world. And then you leave the boundaries of that world. And then it's like, oh, wow, I barely touched any part of the surface. So I just feel like you keep going farther and farther and the map of reality keeps expanding. Yeah, I think that I love that. There was some other, I think it was a DaVinci quote who said, yeah know learn how to see.
00:14:45
Speaker
And i was just like that's exactly what you're describing is. First we see everything that's immediately around us rely okay yeah i feel comfortable with this you know there are things i can optimize their things i could get efficiencies on. Until and for me is taking a book and then i'm like whoa.
00:15:05
Speaker
I did not see this layer of reality. Let's say, you know, about time. I thought it was just time passes 24 hours a day. And then I realized, no, there's so much more to it. And once you start to see that the world becomes so rich and almost like there, there's some study about in certain languages, there are more distinctions between colors like blue, I think,
00:15:30
Speaker
He was Russian or something like that. So they did a study that if you spoke a language that had less distinctions, you'll physically see less colors. So it's almost like that with ideas too, is once you start to see more ideas, the the world becomes so rich and and we have new eyes ah to explore the world.
00:15:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, language is so powerful. And I talked about this in this, I just did this little solo episode where I saw this little short Instagram reel where some old dude was like talking about a tree. yeah And he was saying, just imagine that and you were an alien coming here and then you saw the tree And you'd be like, what, what is this thing? It's full of, you know, there's creatures on it. There's like all these different branches. and You don't wouldn't have any words for it. It's just like, it would look like this entire ecosystem of millions of parts. And then someone's like, Oh, that's a tree. And then, you know, the next time you see it, you just kind of forget about it. So it's like, sometimes language can also be.
00:16:39
Speaker
Not oppressive, but it fits us into categories. And then when we start to label, you know the way we can get around that is by labeling the the different parts. right You can explore more. Like with color, for example, you know once you learn that there's a forest green, not just a regular green, you start to notice that more often.
00:16:58
Speaker
other way, I'm colorblind a little bit. and oh The thing you mentioned about language, I mean, that's something... I'm definitely following the trails for it because, well, it debated whether it shapes how we think, but it definitely shapes how we perceive ideas, right? So at sunrise, a sunset could just be a sunrise or a sunset, or it could be a whole poem on the experience. And I find that so um amazing that we can do both. We can condense it down to something small and just say, okay, move on. And we can also expand it and write a song about it, write a poem about it, write a book about it. So yeah, that ability to zoom in and out, or I'm not sure if that's the right action, but... thats Something so deep, like,
00:17:54
Speaker
I think you were talking about this, talking to a friend in one of the videos about going to see a sunset, yeah and then like, you know, you go there and it's, you know, way when you actually look at it, there's so much more there it than you remember or expected, or you sort of have this little place in your head somewhere, like some little unit that's like sunset, and then that's it for you. And then you stop recognizing the magic in it.
00:18:18
Speaker
And I think you mentioned poetry. And one thing that I think makes poetry so cool is that it can cut through the exact definitions for things that we get stuck in. So you take a small little slice of something like a picture, you take a picture of the sunset and there's a hundred million bits of information. And then like, when you just say the word sunset, it's like six bits of information, like one bit for each letter, I suppose. And then we do this huge data compression.
00:18:46
Speaker
But even in like that, so you can imagine like that one picture is like just looking at the visual information, but it's like information from all the senses and senses in this dynamic flowing movie that we couldn't even fathom or ever we we couldn't ever write a book.
00:19:06
Speaker
it would be like the thickness of the earth to describe that one moment of watching the sunset. And yet, you know, we're just like, oh, sunset, that's it. Done. But I think the beauty of poetry and story is that a poem has, you can outward expand that, if that makes sense. And that like, you can feel and imagine and breathe life into a poem that makes it really meaningful for you in ways that transcend just the words on the page.
00:19:35
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I remember in English class, we had to read Yeats. Yeats. Yeats. Yeats. Yeats. And the I specifically remember there was one poem about Pete, like, you know, just wet dirt. And at that time, I could not appreciate it. I just thought, why would you write something like this? It sounds damp. It sounds just cloudy. I don't like it.
00:20:05
Speaker
Until it leaves a little seed of like there is something worthy of damp dirt to write something beautiful about it. And whenever I find myself in a situation, I don't know, like I'm caught out in the rain and I'm damp.
00:20:23
Speaker
I remember, wait a second, you know, someone might be writing about this and there are lots of songs about, you know, it's raining and, you know, what happens and all the emotions that come out. And then I start noticing, oh, in movies, whenever there's a sad moment, there's a word for this, can't remember now, but the weather reflects that. And so then I start to see beauty in that and I realize, gosh, this is expanding my understanding of a word right of a concept that there's so many ways and coming back to the Japanese sensibility right there the melancholy is beautiful in the itself too so putting on these glasses I think there's a lot of wonder to say oh there's another way of looking at this I never knew about before and now my everyday changes so that's really powerful on
00:21:13
Speaker
Yeah, so cool. If I had a superpower, I think it would be to see from the perspective of someone who loves that thing.
Appreciating Art and Culture
00:21:20
Speaker
So for the painting, you like are like, you know, someone who loves rain. i love it And I guess I mean,
00:21:27
Speaker
there must be a way to see into it. I was trying to change and I've done it several times in my life where it's like I don't like some type of food and then I keep trying and then at some point I see because there's like people in the world that like for example durian yeah a lot of people hate it and the people that love it it's like heaven for the ambrosia. You know, I see that set on wonder every time they eat it. And I feel like I starting to see somehow after trying it a bunch. Okay, they can feel that way about it. Yeah, I that i think we can learn to feel awe and wonder, especially because you broke it down in the eight things. I used to feel like I don't understand art ah is so subjective.
00:22:20
Speaker
Sure, you know, some things look beautiful, others don't. But and modern art, not into it. but And similar to your story is, then I say, well, you know, there's something behind it. Let's figure out what it is. And as I continue to go to art galleries, watch YouTube video of the Tate Modern has a great YouTube channel. So good that I love to just go back and you know, they break my frame. They break my frame of how I can see what is beauty, and like how it relates to the general, the culture of that time. And then it's acquired taste, but acquired. Yeah. And then like, think of how you can populate your life with more
00:23:07
Speaker
awe and wonder that way. Yeah. but yes I mean, all of that, like I didn't used to, there was a time where I didn't enjoy going to museums for the same reason. And yeah, I'm not sure, I think it was just giving my attention more to certain things and reconnecting with the things that I really resonated with as a like kids, yeah you know, pieces that reopened me to the the beauty. And I think one thing that's difficult and that's so pushed in modern times is that efficiency yeah mentality because I was so much in everything I did had to be connected to like some productive outcome for a while, you know, like everything I had to, everything I did, it was like, oh, if this isn't moving me towards some goal, then there's no point in me doing this thing. like I couldn't see the point in, you know, like going to an art gallery. But yeah, I guess all in wonder is really,
00:24:07
Speaker
not compatible with that framework as much, I think. I feel like it all and wonder, at least personally, it makes me learn about who I am and what my goals really are, because I go through life and I take on goals that other people have for me or you know society has for everyone. But whenever there are moments of awe and wonder,
00:24:35
Speaker
I stop and think about, gosh, you like this is giving me so much joy. I don't think it should, but hey, you know now I gotta reevaluate. Who am I? Why am I feeling this amount of awe and wonder towards this as opposed to, I don't know, I don't even know what I don't like these days. I think I've stopped doing a lot of them.
00:25:00
Speaker
going going to work for someone else. So for me, it helps me get clearer on what do I want out of life.
Personal Growth Through Awe Experiences
00:25:10
Speaker
Can you think of any specific examples that might have changed your path or your trajectory? Yeah, there are a couple. The first one that really left a very strong imprint in my head, I've shared this with you as well, is when I was on safari in the Masai Mara, watching a sunset. I had to wake up at 4am. I think it was. I was really groggy. I was like, oh my god, is this a vacation? You know, I'm getting up so early. Until I was immersed
00:25:49
Speaker
in this sunrise where the whole safari was waking up. You can hear the rustles in the ground. You could hear birds ahead. You start to see the sun. I've never seen it so red. like so the The way the light reflected, i just I've never seen a sunrise like that in my life.
00:26:13
Speaker
and I don't think I'm a morning person, but that morning I was like, wow, I have been missing out my entire life. I'm sorry, I look like this every single day. And it, it made me feel so a part of the circle of life and not to make it cliche, but it made me realize, you know, I am just one element of this beautiful earth. And, you know, every day we're in the cycle.
00:26:43
Speaker
Every year is a cycle and I just realized what I do every day is not important. Not in a bad sense, but you know, there will always be a next day that I could do something. And even if I am not here,
00:27:00
Speaker
there's so much more going on. So it gave me this really humble feeling and it was very empowering to say, now I want to do more of what I love. And at that point I was still working consulting and I realized, okay, I'm learning a lot here, but I want to transition to doing some more of my own things because I'm here on earth watching the sunrise. I want to see what I can create that will add to it.
00:27:29
Speaker
That's beautiful. Shout out to Lion King. Yeah, that's right. I feel like that, isn't it crazy to you that that sunrise happens, you know, ostensibly every morning. Yes. And it's like, man, it is to something that I've brought back over and over in the podcast is that R is diminishes your sense of self. And you're mentioning like, Oh, you know, what I'm doing doesn't matter. And it's in a good way in that it doesn't way matter and in a cosmic sense, because I've been taking things too seriously. Yeah, yeah and there have been times where a lot of times in my life, I still struggle with it all the time, where my ego will prevent me from doing the things that I really care about. Yeah. Because you know, maybe it's um on social media, and
00:28:18
Speaker
I feel like everyone's doing it better than me. you know and it It all has to be about me, but the cool thing about awe and wonder is when you have one of those moments, I mean, so you articulated it so beautifully, but you feel part of everything and you know even people who, they did this funny study where they had people draw draw themselves ah you know after seeing something that inspired awe and wonder and the people that,
00:28:47
Speaker
didn't, you know, drew them their face all frame. And then people that did, you know, feel that on wonder, they drew themselves really tiny and like in part of this big natural scene. yeah And funny enough, even the written words that they had, they had people write me or something like that, I forget what it was exactly. But the people that experienced on wonder wrote it smaller, like they wrote the word me smaller. And how, how cool, like, you know, we can,
00:29:17
Speaker
get out of our own way. And do you feel happy about that decision in in hindsight? Absolutely. was that Absolutely. It keeps me really grounded. that The way you describe the study, I mean, that's exactly how I remember that experience. I was so small in my mind. And it was just this vast savanna with the beautiful lights.
00:29:43
Speaker
Um, every time I feel like, Oh, you know, like, I don't know, a YouTube video is not going well, or if something is happening in the business, I feel like I haven't done my best. I just, I don't know. I snap back into that's okay. but Don't worry about it. You know, like you, you are.
00:30:05
Speaker
you are doing the best that you can you are exploring things and that's the I don't want to say the process matters because you know that's so cliche but it's realizing and that's what I'll do and I realized when I talked to some friends who are very much in the Here's my goal. I have to get there. There is no room for failing that they will hear my story. And they would be like, Oh, but then isn't that just a sunrise? Like, Oh, isn't that just, you know, a momentary thing? And it's easy to try to wipe away.
00:30:47
Speaker
And I think that's what you were talking about with the ego. It's like, but let's get back to the real thing. Okay. And then what was the productive thing you did? So I feel like having experienced that all I wonder that changed the directory of my life.
00:31:03
Speaker
I became less worried about what others think or feel or perceive if things go well or don't go well because to me, it almost doesn't matter because like you said, like I know I'm just this little stardust in the cosmic your grandness. It doesn't really matter. well like I can keep going. Yeah, I love that. And it points to, to me at least, the part of me that wants to find some productive part of everything, gets frustrated.
Social Media, Self-Perception, and Awe
00:31:39
Speaker
yeah you know Because it's like that part of me, his worldview is almost like this egocentric thing where everything has to be back into you know goals or what I want for myself. yeah But then feeling on wonder really points to the fact that there's meaningful stuff outside
00:31:58
Speaker
of me, which is so healthy for everyone to fuel in our times. I think broadly for a culture that has grown up with social media that sort of forces that upon you, that like you are, absolutely you are supposed to, you know, it almost like gamifies everything, puts points on you, followers, likes, things like that, where we never had that before. And it's almost like,
00:32:28
Speaker
ah for an idea now that there is more meaningful stuff like experiencing a sunrise. So beautiful. You know, it doesn't mean anything, you know, in this productive sense, but it could be so much more meaningful. And, you know, something that, you know, maybe you spent the morning writing a blog post or something, maybe that would have been good. But, you know, having this experience is, you know, connects you to the, the mystery in this important way.
00:32:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think they can both exist. Or maybe they should both exist. So we can still write that blog post at in the morning, some mornings, and we can still go and say, I want to be in this moment looking at the sunrise. What all and wonder taught me was how I can balance the two, the productive side of me, but also the one that's present, that's humble, and move them forward at the same time. ah For me, like after seeing that sunrise, I was like, OK, I'm going to pursue something on my own. That was still about me and my goals. But when it doesn't work out, I have
00:33:44
Speaker
um Memory I can retrieve to immediately bring me back and say that's okay. you or You can keep going and to me that going back and forth and maybe it's linked to you going between the logical side and creative side as well.
Awe as a Creative and Life Guide
00:34:00
Speaker
It's almost.
00:34:02
Speaker
healthy. I don't know if we can always. Yeah, I mean, this is what I'm after in my life is figuring out how can we hold opposing ideas and be able to function? That's my lifelong question mark. So I think there's something there. There's something about balancing, but not maybe always imbalance in every single moment. Yeah, I see, you know, I kind of see the all in wonder or at least how you feel when you're in awe and wonder of something as a very deep guide and something that can almost lead, and these are all kind of weird metaphors, ostensibly it's all you, but you know it leading you towards what you will find maximally meaningful, what will bring you the most joy and then also
00:35:00
Speaker
be able to extend that joy to other people in your life in the best way. Because I think growth is important and necessary. And we need that part of ourselves to organize and move forward and get things done and be productive and be efficient. But to its own end, I think it just spins on its wheels, if that makes sense. And then yeah like without that guiding force,
00:35:26
Speaker
So yeah, I guess I hadn't thought about this before, but sort of awe and wonder as like a guiding force that can help you course correct yeah groovier through your life. I really love how you articulated this because as you were saying, I can see visually in my head, it's almost like ah you're going one way and you see something that evokes awe and wonder.
00:35:53
Speaker
It comes into your head, your heart, whatever it is, your being, and it needs somewhere to go. I feel at at least to me, I felt like an energy that needed to be expressed somehow. And to me, that was how I course corrected was, okay, I need to now take this and create something out of it. So, and.
00:36:15
Speaker
I don't know if it's exactly the same, but it's almost like you consume something. Let's say, I don't know, I'm watching a YouTube video and I feel really inspired by it. If I took action, then it builds momentum towards a, you know, a goal that I realize I want to go towards. Whereas if I watched a YouTube video, listen to a podcast, I felt inspired, but I didn't do anything. It kind of sits there and pulls me back or holds me back.
00:36:44
Speaker
So, yeah, to me, there is something about you have to use that towards something, like express it somehow. Turn just the the wow into something and that as you go through it, maybe you lose momentum.
00:37:00
Speaker
Maybe you're not sure which way to go because I felt a lot of those like, Oh, should I keep going? Should I, ah what should I do with this? It takes another frame breaking moment to be like, Oh, okay. I so now see a new path and yeah go down that path. Well, food without, you know, food without movement creates disease, right? Right. There you go. Yeah. No, you need to metabolize yeah whatever you take in your inputs and then use that energy towards something that will not just get things done in the world, but make you feel better yeah and function better as you grow and move forward. Yeah. I'm just thinking back to a post that you wrote and you pushed for this idea that you said an original idea is like carbon. And I was wondering what you meant by that, if you can explain that a little bit. That was a post I wrote while I was on applying.
00:38:02
Speaker
I get a lot of awe and wonder on the plane. I think I'm still amazed that we can fly in the sky, point A to point B. And I saw this documentary on carbon and how amazing it is, how it's created everything in our, at least in our solar system. And to me, creative ideas are that seat that It can combine with all sorts of people, it can combine with all sorts of other ideas, and you never know what's gonna come out of it. And when the things come out of it, it always breathes life into something. And this is also another one of the things that I'm along the lines of, I think we can't just always be productive. We need some sort of creativity
00:39:00
Speaker
in our life. And I really think creativity is core to every single person, even though we are taught at school to be like, Oh, you've got to be in art. You're probably not creative or, you know, you can't draw, you can't say you're probably not creative. And I think that's just not true. All of us need to create something in our lives. Like to your point about the food, food needs movement. We need to metabolize.
00:39:31
Speaker
things, we need to create things into our world. And I wanted to compare creativity to something so crucial in our life that it's everywhere and we just have to notice it and use it.
00:39:49
Speaker
Yeah, that's beautiful. Creativity is, you know, people like to put it in a box like music or that's creative, but creativity spans pretty much everything we do. And it's like, it is so central and it's part of every moment to moment decision that we make is in a way creative because we're making certain choices over other choices. We're prioritizing something over something else.
00:40:16
Speaker
There are ways that but you can suddenly see the flash of insight between two more distantly related ideas, which maybe be makes it more fundamental or more carbon-like, I guess. But yeah, I think a lot of what we do is just inherently creative, just as humans. It's mysterious. Yeah. It's sad that creativity has a very specific nuance to the word.
00:40:46
Speaker
Coming back to the language aspect, for example, some of my family members who got bees in art said, I'm not creative, i don't bring me into anything because they don't want to fail. They'd rather feel safe that I'm just a logical person, you know, I can't draw or I can't sing.
00:41:08
Speaker
And I don't know yet how to express why the creativity they see is only a small part of what creative energy really is and how it will make
Redefining Creativity in Everyday Life
00:41:22
Speaker
it better. Because I see so many moments where my family members are being creative. They're innovating at work, they're in innovating at home.
00:41:30
Speaker
So, yeah, that's one thing I want to figure out is how to talk about creativity in a way doesn't make it seem scary and foreign. Yeah. That's so important because that feeling does stop people from doing things that they might otherwise flourish at, you know, just because they feel like if they went in front of some celebrity judge on a panel or fail at like singing or something. Yeah. Yeah.
00:42:01
Speaker
Well, there's this other quote that you had in the post that was so beautiful. It's a Monet quote. And it's, every day I discover more and more beautiful things. It's enough to drive one mad. I have such a desire to do everything. My head is bursting with it. Like this quote feels like he's just taking in all this awe and wonder and is bursting with the desire to use that creative energy.
00:42:24
Speaker
to create and to discover and to move around the world. I wonder how Monet felt because I felt from all and wonder I was finally able to prioritize. So I really share what he wrote, he said in the sense of and once I realized the all and wonder in my life, I realized there are so many things I want to appreciate, I want to do, I want to explore. And the only way I could choose a place to start was because I can now see so many ah opportunities, like I feel the all I wonder to different degrees. So I could pick one and move forward. There's something called the somatic marker theory where they say that decisions, you cannot make decisions without emotion. it Even if logically you can assess all the pros and cons,
00:43:21
Speaker
You cannot make a decision if there is no somatic mark or emotional feelings behind what you're seeing. and all and wonder taught me how to prioritize. So I could start to notice the difference and I could start to know how much I could do and what I could pursue. When I was in university, I didn't know what I wanted to do in life. They all seemed fine. You know, everything sounds like okay options.
Finding Clarity and Purpose Through Awe
00:43:54
Speaker
And it's only in the last
00:43:58
Speaker
You know, maybe five years I've started to know how to say no. To start to understand who I am and what I can do to share joy with myself as well as with other people. So yeah, I really feel that feeling translating into some sort of energy that helped me create something that helped me course correct as I'm doing different things to remind me who I am, what I want to do.
00:44:27
Speaker
what I can do, what I can experiment. It's amazing. And you are an inspiration in that regard because it has shown out and it's really cool to watch how you've taken all of these different interests and created something so awesome. So thank you for sharing. Thank you for saying that. I think, outwardly, it's still not quite expressing what I want to do, but one step at a time. I've come to terms with that.
00:44:56
Speaker
I mean, especially when you're creating this path for yourself, that is not, it's not like, you know, if you're going to be a doctor, it's like, okay, you just take these courses and you have this very set path to go onto.
Conclusion: Vicky's Ongoing Journey
00:45:07
Speaker
And even if you're a musician is a little harder, but you know, at least you have, you have some people that have done it, you have some goal, but when you're really forging a completely new path in a,
00:45:22
Speaker
yeah ever changing world, you know, it's gonna take a lot of awe and wonder to figure out exactly what's gonna make you inspired enough to stick with it across that time. Yeah, I think sticking with it is definitely I thought would be the hardest. But actually, once I found my path, it's not even a question.
00:45:45
Speaker
Which is a sign to myself that, okay, I found something that I could stick with because I thought I was multi-passion and I would be moving on, but I haven't yet. So yeah, I think all I wanted to definitely help with that. Beautiful. Well, I think that's it. Yeah.
00:46:05
Speaker
Yeah, thank you so much for sharing. That was really a life giving conversation. and Thank you for asking all the questions and just holding a podcast about this beautiful topic. I think I haven't smiled so much. My job is from this conversation just reminds me of all the all the joy no that I felt in the past few years and um It's a real a real joy i filled experience for me to do. Same here. Thank you so much. Thanks Vicki. Thank you.