Awestruck

There are reasons why I read what I read and just this morning I am reminded about why I read the New York Times. Mostly I think I read it because it is, in my opinion, the single best voice of the America I believe in and enjoy. I chose my words carefully in stating that because there is a case to be made that perhaps something like Fox News is more representative of the voice of America these days, as much as I hate to admit it. But the country I aspired in my expatriate youth to return to and wallow in is the America that the New York Times does such a good job of depicting. From a pure news transmission standpoint, I think the New York Times is still the best source authority and that is no trivial thing, but there is something about the breadth of writing that I find in the Times that makes it so valuable to me. I could get most of my hard global news from The Financial Times, who’s format and delivery techniques (including its various alert formats) are extremely effective. I could get the Washington scene in all its forms from the Washington Post, regardless of all its alignment flip flops of late under the ownership of Jeff Bezos. The Economist does the most convincing job for me of feeding me the in-depth policy considerations that I find so meaningful to my fullest understanding of the implications of all the stuff swirling around in the world. But every once in while The New York Times sends an article my way that surprises me and reminds me about the value of employing the breadth of talent that they do and having the editorial creativity that they do to come up with pieces that are not only very thoughtful, but also somewhat unexpected…or at least from and unexpected perspective.

The article that is prompting all of this today is one called In Search of Awe. Since it opens in the context of the Jewish high holy days, in which we are in the midst of, and was written by one Emma Goldberg, I was prepared to dismiss it as having minimal relevance to me since it seemed to be very specifically religious. But I was wrong, and I am glad that my habit of reading down a bit beyond the opening lines and the Times’ approach of using topic headlines to draw the reader further into the context they are developing in a story, caused me to read the whole article. To begin with, it is less about religion and more about spirituality. It seems that the concept of awe is something people are studying at several levels. The transformation of “awesome” from a word expressing religious reverence to casual slang happened gradually over several decades, with the biggest shift occurring in the 1980s and 1990s. Historically, “awesome” meant inspiring awe or fear – something literally awe-inspiring, often used in religious contexts to describe God’s power or natural phenomena like storms or mountains. This usage dominated from the word’s origins through the mid-20th century. In the 1960s-70s the word began loosening from its purely religious/serious contexts. It was surfer culture in California that started using “awesome” more casually to describe great waves, followed by the hippie movement adopted it for intense or mind-blowing experiences. But the real explosion of the word took place in the 1980s-90s), when “awesome” really took off as general slang. There was the Valley Girl speak and California teen culture that really popularized it nationwide. Movies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) spread the usage while MTV and teen-oriented media helped cement it in youth vocabulary. By the late 1980s, it was common slang for “really good” or “cool”.

The mainstream adoption took hold in the 1990s as parents and adults began picking up the usage from their kids. By the 2000s it had become fully integrated into casual American English to the point where today it is so ubiquitous that it’s considered somewhat dated or overused by the younger generations. To suggest that something is “awesome” is almost a cliche at this point. This shift reflects broader changes in American language like the increasing informality of communication, the influence of youth culture on mainstream speech, and the flattening of linguistic register in casual conversation. “Flattening of linguistic register” refers to the breakdown of traditional boundaries between formal and informal language use. Essentially, the way we speak is becoming more uniformly casual across different contexts. Linguistic register is how we adjust our language style based on the situation. A “formal register” would be something in academic papers, legal documents and business presentations. An “informal register” would be your conversations with friends, casual emails and social media. And then there is the “ceremonial register”, which is what gets used at weddings, graduations and some religious services. “Flattening” is the elimination of clear distinctions between these levels. We see casual language creeping into formal settings, slang and colloquialisms appearing in business communications, and the same vocabulary used whether you’re texting a friend or writing a work email. That breakdown is no more evident than in the tweets and comments by President Trump. No president before him has ever flattened the linguistic register quite as much as he has. One might even suggest that he has destroyed the register altogether.

Why is this all happening? The biggest culprit is clearly the advent of digital communication. Email leading to texting and now social media tend to blur formal/informal boundaries. This is happening while that consistent change-agent, generational change, is at work with younger people bringing casual speech into workplaces and cultural shifts forcing a more egalitarian society with less rigid hierarchies and thereby a globally simplified form of English becoming acceptable and ubiquitous for international business. But while this flattening makes communication more accessible and relatable, we may be losing some of the precision and nuance that different registers provided for different situations. It’s neither inherently good nor bad, but it is a significant change in how language functions in society. Today, “awesome” sits somewhere between its original profound meaning and throwaway slang, depending entirely on context and tone.

What I liked about the article was that it restored some of the specialness of awe to me. It spoke of finding awe in small bites here there and everywhere in everyday life. I know that in my time-available retirement mode of life, having time to “smell the roses” is a big part of my leisure in this adjustment. There are awe-inducing habits which we have thought of before…like sitting and watching people and wondering what drives their lives. That alone can inspire some awe, especially when you see amazing acts of kindness. Perhaps the most valuable thing the second Trump electoral win has given me is the ability to turn off MSNBC in my truck and listen to music instead. There is nothing quite as awe-inspiring as good music. And then there is the act of driving by or (better yet) participating in a rally to protest some injustice. There is nothing quite as good to describe that feeling of honking cars than to call it awe-inducing. Last night I watched a Kevin Bacon movie that I had missed a few years ago. It is the true story of a Marine Colonel who chooses to be an escort for the remains of an enlisted man who was killed in Iraq. He does this because he has become a military paper shuffler and is looking to reestablish his connection to his original Marine mission. He wants to regain the awe of life and he does it through this pilgrimage.

I like finding awe in the world every day and when it comes right down to it life and the world are totally awesome.