"Amazement" by Makayla L

"The finest thing we can experience is the mysterious.  It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.  He who does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle."

-  Albert Einstein

Amazement: a feeling of great surprise and wonder. Sure it seems simple enough literally yet how can one speak of an emotion so literal. The awe, the wonder, the curiosity, the enchantment, surprise, mystery, brilliance, disbelief, shock, etc., whatever you wish to call it, this world never ceases to amaze. To me amazement is waking up every morning. It’s seeing these dormant California wild flowers bloom after a wonderful season of rain, or even amazement in the rain that falls somehow carried by gas formations we call clouds. Amazed that baking cookies is all chemistry and that mathematicians equated such things. Amazement is the feeling of laughter shared with family. It’s found in how comforting a bed can be when one’s alarm sounds on a weekday. Amazement comes from observing the actions or thoughts of a friend that allow you to learn that much more about them, gain access that much deeper into their being. From acknowledging the countless life species who share this planet with us, from follicle mites living on your eyelashes to capybaras and sloths and down to the ocean where we still have no idea who’s living in the dark. It’s exploring a new town, state, even country and realizing what a melting pot we are blessed to grow up in. Amazement is the hundreds of languages, thousands of religions, millions of cultures that we may rarely open our eyes to. Forever amazed to think that the Moon, a simple rock stuck in our grasp, can create such energy to keep our feet grounded and give motion to the oceans. Amazed that sometimes randomly, our planet’s core spews out molten rock to give us a little evidence as to what’s within; simply absorbed by amazement of nature, the trees, flowers, oceans, valleys and mountains.  I find amazement in the hieroglyphics of those before; furthermore, how we even came to be today. Amazement is the wonders of humanity, yet simultaneous amazement in our complete stupidity as well. Amazed and mesmerized by the Great Coral Reef and Amazon rainforest yet wonderstruck, which we pollute and sell off these treasures for our own lives that aren’t even a decimal on the time scale of Earth. I am still amazed when others show manners or gratitude because they are becoming lost values. It’s the kindness of strangers or cruelness of friends. Amazement in how intense emotions can be and the power of our mind that we surely take for granted. It’s the little things that so easily influence ones day.

 To me, amazement is maintaining the optimism, the innocence, to be amazed by life.