A sense of wonder

This is a very personal post. Not embarassing or deep, simply a solidification of my own thoughts, rather than something of interest to the masses. It's also a bit touchy-feely, as it expresses explores my feelings a bit.

I have always had, as long as I can remember, a particular feeling of something important. It's kind of like waking up and not being able to remember the dream you just had. It's on the tip of your tongue, whirling around in the darkness of confusion, just out of reach. You are so close, you can almost taste it. And yet, it eludes.

And what kind of feeling is it? It is the feeling of the vastness of space and time, of infinite clouds and unimaginable magnitude. Presumably we all have a sense of wonder, but it's not just about looking around and saying "wow". It is a deeply spiritual feeling.

Now, if I were religious in any way, I would say it was glimpses of the divine, a feeling of enlightenment, or of being one with the cosmos. But I'm not, so I won't. It's more like a faint memory of childhood impressions, of the beauty, magnificence and magnitude of the sky. To describe it, I would say it is like the images of 'the nothing' from The Neverending Story.

One of my stories, "Old Girl" was about a lifeform in the atmosphere of Jupiter. I didn't dwell on the scenery, but writing about it evoked this elusive, magisterial feeling. Vast planes of clouds, as far as the eye can see. Stretching farther that any human eye has ever seen.

And music can take me there. Oh boy! This audiobook takes me to the infinite in a way nothing else can come near, with its slow, sustained pipes, so fitting for Lovecraft's poem about unimaginable realms and the infinite gulfs of space and time.

So that's all I wanted to say. The brief, elusive glimpses of the infinite are something I treasure dearly. My favourite writers, such as Lovecraft, Clarke, Lem and Baxter, have and tried to put it into words and musicians like Jean Michel Jarre can open the veil a crack for me. It is something I would strive for, to evoke similar emotions in the readers of my fiction. I will of course fail miserably, but it is the attempt to glimpse or reveal the infinite that has lead to the greatest works of art and spiritual experiences of humanity.