There is a moment in your life, if you are lucky, when the world goes quiet. I found mine at Nariman Point in Mumbai. Before I got there, I was in a bad mood. A close friend had suggested me to write a poem when I arrived. I snapped at her and said I would rather jump. She laughed it off, but I didn't.

That was the version of me that showed up at Nariman Point.

As I got out of the cab and went to sit by the edge, something in me shifted almost instantly. The sky was purple, and the wind pressed gently against my face. There was a crowd around me, loud and restless, but their voices did not disturb me anymore.

Before I fully noticed it, the sky had deepened into a darker shade of blue. I stood there without saying a word. At some point, the anger left and I did not even notice when.

Then the skyscrapers began to light up. The wind from the Arabian Sea touched my face again and somewhere in all of it, something inside me shifted and a stillness settled in. All the chaos in my mind suddenly turned mute and something else showed up. It was not only peace, it was more like hunger. A desire for more life, more scale, and for more meaning. I wanted to build something. I wanted to become someone.

I never wrote that poem. But I think I finally understood why someone might. At the time, I didn't have the words for what I felt. But science does have an explanation.

What Awe Actually Is

For a long time, awe belonged to poets and philosophers. That changed when psychologists Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt tried to actually define it.

They found that awe happens when two things come together.

The first is vastness. You encounter something that feels bigger than you. It doesn't have to be physically large. It can be an idea, a piece of music, a skyline, or just a moment that exceeds what you were expecting.

The second is accommodation. Your mind struggles to fit the experience into what it already knows. It has to stretch. That stretching is what awe feels like from the inside.

It's not exactly comfortable. But it's not uncomfortable either. It's something deeper than both.

What It Does to Your Brain

Researchers found that awe quiets what's called the default mode network in the brain.

This is the part responsible for all the internal chatter and noise. The replaying of old conversations, the worrying about tomorrow, the constant commentary and worry running in the background. It's the noise most of us live inside without realizing it.

Awe turns that noise down.

That's why my anger disappeared at Nariman Point. It wasn't a decision I made. The sky was simply too large for my thoughts to compete with.

When that noise fades, people report feeling more present, more connected, and less tangled up in their own problems. And in such moments, there's usually some clarity waiting.

The Ego Gets Smaller

Psychologists call this the "small self." It doesn't mean feeling insignificant. It means realizing you're part of something much larger, and finding that genuinely freeing.

When the ego steps back, a lot of the anxiety that comes with it steps back too. The need to compare yourself to others, to impress people, to constantly perform loosens. What's left is simpler and more honest and in my opinion pure too.

For a moment, you're not your job or your past or whatever's been bothering you. You're just someone standing in front of something vast. And it turns out that's a pretty good place to be.

Why It Made Me Want More

Awe doesn't just calm you down. It clarifies things.

When the noise in your mind tunes down it gives opportunities to your real desires to surface up. These desires, hopes, dreams and ambition were already there, just buried under all the clatter and noise.

For me it was ambition. The skyline wasn't just beautiful. It showed what humans are capable of building. It showed that scale isn't some impossible thing. It gets built over time, through consistency, decisions and effort and showing up.

In that quiet moment, I could actually hear myself. I wanted to build something that mattered.

Awe Is Not a Luxury

We treat moments like this as accidents. Something rare, unplanned, out of our hands. But research suggests awe is something worth actively looking for.

People who experience it more often tend to be more creative, more generous, and more satisfied with their lives. They're also more open to learning and a little less convinced they already have everything figured out.

Awe makes people both calmer and sharper at the same time.

The problem isn't that awe is rare. It's that we're too distracted to notice it. We walk through remarkable places staring at our phones. We fill every quiet moment with noise. We don't give ourselves enough time to notice what's already there.

How to Find It

It doesn't require anything dramatic.

Nature helps. A tree, a clear sky, a river moving fast. Any of it can work if you actually stop and pay attention. Music can get you there too, especially the kind that builds toward something and then releases it.

Watching someone do something with exceptional skill or real courage can also do it. There's something about witnessing excellence or genuine kindness that hits differently.

But mostly it just requires slowing down. Awe needs a moment to land. If you're rushing through everything, you'll miss it every time.

The Moment That Stayed

I never wrote that poem.

But I still think about that evening. The sky shifting colors, the city lighting up, the wind coming off the sea. I remember who I was when I arrived and how quickly that version of me disappeared.

Awe doesn't solve anything. It doesn't even hand you a plan.

It just reminds you that the world is larger than whatever is bothering you. And somewhere in that larger world, there's a clearer version of you that's been waiting to be heard.