Is your life filled with enchantment?
I did a quick Google search of the word enchantment, and Google defines it this way:
Usually I fill in my drawings with watercolors and then scan them. But I am without my usual tools of the trade currently, so I’m going old school.
That sounds about right.
But I define enchantment a little differently. Here’s my definition:
Since I was little, I have had a strong feeling that life is supposed to be filled with enchantment—that it is, in fact, enchanting.
And frequently I feel that sense of enchantment and wonder.
But if I am being honest, I have also experienced frequent times in my life in which life did not feel enchanting at all.
All sorts of things like tragedy, disappointment, and unexpected loss can make life lose its sparkle, even in the most enchantment-prone personality.
So, if you have long stretches of life in which life doesn’t feel enchanted, please know that is a human experience, and you are not alone.
But enchantment is important. It actually strengthens our mental health and sense of joy and belonging. (I’ll address that shortly.)
And while stretches of disenchantment happen to everyone, there are some aspects of contemporary society that can unnecessarily undermine our sense of enchantment
Recently I was reading this book by psychologist Abraham Maslow, and he has some powerful ideas that help us understand that everyone can regularly experience everyday enchantment.
You can find this book on Amazon here.
He also helps us better understand why so many of us don’t.
In this book, Maslow writes about a type of thinking that is especially conducive to happiness and feelings of enchantment.
He calls such thinking B-Cognition, and B-Cognition often leads to watch Maslow calls Peak Experiences.
Maslow writes,
In B-cognition the experience of the object tends to be seen as a whole, as a complete unit, detached from relations, from possible usefulness, from expediency, and from purpose.
It is seen as if it were all there was in the universe, as if it were all of being, synonymous with the universe.1
I like to think of B-Cognition as the kind of thinking we experience when we approach life playfully and appreciate it or contemplate it simply for its own sake.
When we approach life and the things in it in this way, we aren’t focused on achieving or accomplishing or proving anything.
We simply approach life with an attitude of appreciating what we encounter because of what something is.
Maslow notes that the more we experience B-cognition, the more we view objects with care.2
This care is like
the caring minuteness with which a mother will gaze upon her infant again and again, or the lover at his beloved, or the connoisseur at his painting . . .3
Maslow argues that when we use B-cognition, we use a kind of cognition that leads to peak experiences.
In these experiences, we become “so absorbed and ‘poured into’ the object that the self, in a very real sense, disappears.4
And he adds that in such moments, we often experiences “ a fusion of what was two into a larger whole, a super-ordinate unit.”5
And these experiences, he writes further, can bring about feelings of “awe, wonder, amazement, humility an even reverence, exaltation and piety”6
It is interesting to contemplate why B-Cognition, as it is focused on caring attention, leads to feelings of awe, wonder, and enchantment
I like to think that as we gaze at the world with care and tenderness, something responds in a caring and tender way back to us.
And we feel embraced and surrounded by love.
I can’t really explain this phenomenon completely,
But I feel it every time I behold a sunset lovingly or gaze at the flowers in my yard with appreciation and care.
Maslow’s on to something here.
B-Cognition = Care + contemplation = Awe and wonder = Peak Experiences = Enchantment.
But we also need to understand disenchantment.
That is, why are moments of enchantment so rare in contemporary society?
Maslow suggest that B-cognition and noticing things with care is very different from how we often perceive the world.
Maslow calls this typical way of perceiving as “rubricizing”7.
Maslow was probably thinking of rubricizing thinking here.
He explains further that when we rubricize the world, we view it as a “kind of taxonomy, a classifying, a ticketing off into one file cabinet or another.”8
I don’t think there is anything wrong per se with rubricizing the world.
Sometimes viewing the world as a set of categories of things to be organized can be very helpful.
I do this as a philosopher when I analyze various arguments and separate them into strong and weak arguments.
And all of us engage in this kind of thinking whenever we organize our house or our garage.
So, rubricizing can be helpful.
But when we rubricize, we are focused on problems.
So we focus on things like imperfections, incompleteness, brokenness, lack, complication, ugliness, and general badness.
It’s pretty difficult to feel enchanted when we rubricize everything.
On the other hand, B-cognition, because it focuses on gentle care and appreciation, seems to opens up a different way of viewing the world.
For instance, Maslow suggests B-Values are values like “wholeness”, “perfection”, “completion”, “justice”, “aliveness”; “richness”; “simplicity”.
Also, “beauty”; “goodness”; “uniqueness”; “effortlessness”; “playfulness”; “truth”; “self-sufficiency”.9
It’s easy to see how a view of the world steeped in attitudes of wholeness, perfection, completion, justice, aliveness, etc. leads to feelings of enchantment.
And this brings me to an important point about enchantment.
Contemporary society, because it dominated by machinery and technology, excels in rubricizing thinking. It focuses on problem-solving, division, organization, and taxonomizing.
And, to be honest, I am grateful for the gifts such rubricizing can bring me.
For example, I notice such gifts every time I type on my computer and easily edit my files, saving them into organized folders on my computer.
And rubricizing thinking can often bring us a sense of achievement when we organize things efficiently.
However, it cannot help us cultivate the feelings of enchantment that come with B-cognition and peak experiences.
And because we are surrounded with rubricizing kinds of thinking, we definitely need to cultivate enchantment.
If we don’t, we are in danger of cultivating a disenchanted world.
And in fact, sociologist Max Weber suggested that contemporary society is marked by disenchantment.
Max Weber is definitely channeling disenchanment in this picture. But this is honestly how he looks in a lot of his picture. (Google it.)
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Everyone can cultivate enchantment, and the more we practice, the easier it gets.
Furthermore, cultivating enchantment is well worth it.
Enchantment increases feelings of awe and wonder, which are highly beneficial for our mental health.
I regularly like to practice enchantment, which sounds magical and witchy.
But it is honestly just wise living.
Here are some of the ways I have practiced enchantment lately:
Drawing and painting or coloring.
Looking out the window at natural things.
Preserving food from my garden.
Reading captivating books.
Taking moments of silence to just be.
Walking.
Snuggling with my kitty, Jax.
Talking with my husband, John.
Creating with the colors red and blue.
Here’s a campfire mouse I drew and colored recently.
If you are wondering how to cultivate feelings of enchantment, think about this:
What kinds of activities that help you feel B-cognition values like “wholeness”, “perfection”, “completion”, “justice”, “aliveness”; “richness”; “simplicity”?
Also, “beauty”; “goodness”; “uniqueness”; “effortlessness”; “playfulness”; “truth”; “self-sufficiency”?10
Pick one of these words that stands out to you and think of an activity that makes you feel this way and practice it.
And then when you are ready, choose another word and another activity and practice that.
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