Finneran: Putting the “Awe” Back in Awesome
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Friday, August 14, 2015
Tom Finneran, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™
The thought hit me on Route 3 southbound. I was climbing the hill toward the Marshfield exit at about 75 mph (Yes Officer, I was simply trying to keep up with the moving traffic…..).
At that point in the road you are crossing a river (the North River) and an extensive marshland as you begin the climb of a fairly steep hill.
The thought was simple—this little journey must have been painfully slow and frustrating just a few generations ago. Now we cruise right over it at high speed and we cry and moan if we even have to tap the brakes. We’ve lost the “awe” in our lives even as we overuse the word awesome to death. Once upon a time our ancestors would have shuddered at the hard necessity of travel. Not travel for fun mind you, nor travel for vacation, nor for education nor other joys. Such extravagances were only for the economically elite. Such luxuries were utterly unheard of for ordinary Americans. Once upon a time travel for most Americans was a brutal existential reality of getting crops to the marketplace or a dying spouse or child to some distant doctor. Setting out on foot or hitching the horse to the cart required a very early start and resulted in weary bones and exhausted bodies. Today we blast the AC and find our favorite music as we speed over hill and dale, river and marsh, with ease.
Today we describe Red Sox games as “awesome” when the truth is that they haven’t played an awesome game all season. We describe perfectly ordinary onion rings as “awesome” even when they wouldn’t tempt a homeless man to dig in. We confer a worth upon the mundane and the mediocre which does not exist and is not deserved. Simply put, not everything is awesome.
And yet those things which are indeed awesome are taken for granted, so much so that we complain to the high heavens about the slightest inconvenience.
Take air travel. My wife and I were in Paris recently. Our flight there was about an hour behind its scheduled takeoff………no big deal. We were flying through the night and we arrived at our hotel a little behind schedule. Again, no big deal.
Our flight home was into New York with a layover of a few hours before catching a connecting flight to Boston. Another inconvenience to be sure but one which clouded out the truly awesome event—we had crossed the Atlantic Ocean twice in a total span of less than fourteen hours! What was once a frightening oft deadly voyage of months or weeks has become the equivalent of a good night’s sleep.
And while in Paris I had used a little piece of plastic for spending money rather than carrying and worrying about a wad of cash. Our ancestors would be amazed at the lives we lead, at the conveniences we enjoy.
As for a few things that are truly awesome consider these cosmic delights—
A full moon rising out of the oceans. Truly stunning.
Sunsets over Cape Cod Bay. A breaching whale. The birth of a baby. A good sermon about Scriptures’ lessons. A well-engineered bridge—the Zakim, the Brooklyn, and the Golden Gate bridges come to mind. California’s redwoods. Andrea Bocelli, singing anything. Donald Trump’s hair. Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream. The Grand Canyon. The works of Leonardo DaVinci and Michelangelo. Christmas hymns and carols- the spiritual ones, not the goofy ones. The countdown to launch of a rocket. Tigers in the wild—beautiful killing machines. The majesty of elephants. The Army, Navy, Marine, and Air Force marching bands. An aircraft carrier on the move. An aircraft carrier in port. A lightning storm crossing an open bay. A young man or woman bravely heading off to college, opening the door to an independent future.
Add your own. And appreciate the awe around us.
Tom Finneran is the former Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, served as the head the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, and was a longstanding radio voice in Boston radio.
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