Bad news for those who love bad news: 

I’m alive.

 But it gets worse.

 Not only am I alive, we saw not a single tornado…

 Not one earthquake befell us.

 Nor did any angels appear and sound their trumpets.

No, the world did not end.

This is despite:

 - Every major conspiracy influencer telling us to be afraid

- EMP events, earthquakes, volcanoes, YELLOWSTONE!

- Dimensional portals! Government experiments! Cosmic energy shifts!

 - FEMA. FEMA. FEMA. FEMA.

- NATIONAL GUARD!

 - The event organizers (tried to) shut down right before the eclipse, asking us to leave (we did not) because the weather was going to get bad (it didn’t).

Worst of all…

The eclipse went off without a hitch. The sky opened up just in time for us to see it. All four minutes. 

 Bad news for those who love bad news.

 “You Should Definitely Look Up”

Andrew Weil, who spoke one day before the eclipse, mentioned the extravagant warnings.

 In short, it’s nothing new.

Humans have always believed these celestial events signal impending disasters -- earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or even the end of the world. The powers-that-were, on the other hand, have reasons for promoting these ideas, even if they don’t believe them.

In short, said Weil, powers fear the effect non-ordinary things can have on a mass of individuals. These non-ordinary events can, and always have, “create changes in consciousness” – and changes in consciousness are dangerous to old paradigms.

The fear surrounding the eclipse this year, said Weil, is simple: “The government doesn’t want you to look up. You should definitely look up. And let it affect you.”

Of course, not everyone throughout history always bought into the fear.

A thousand years back, the Chacoans, early Pueblos, saw one such total eclipse. They were so stunned by what they saw that they carved it into a rock, showing the coronal mass ejection (CME).

Solar astronomer, J. McKim Malville, says this wasn't drawn out of fear. It was celebratory. It was drawn from a sense of awe.

On our way back, we stopped at a bookstore in Waco, Texas.There, the final insight emerged. We discovered what THEY are really afraid of…

And three ways to make the fearmongers, scarcity-pushers, and isolation-peddlers obsolete.

Drenched in Awe

From a shelf, a book by Dacher Keltner, called Awe: The New Science of Wonder practically leapt into my arms. Keltner argues awe is a fundamental psychological need. All throughout history, it was the moments of awe that drove us forward.

In fact, Keltner goes so far to say that these moments of awe are the primary driver behind culture. If politics are downstream of culture, then culture is downstream of awe.

Big moments of awe inform how we behave, think, relate – they transform our ideas, values, and morals. They trigger radical changes and accelerate paradigm shifts.

 Buddha’s enlightenment? Moses receiving the Ten Commandments? Visions of Muhammed? Joseph Smith? Moments of awe that transformed the world.

Galileo? Darwin? Beethoven? Shakespeare? All works littered with awe’s inspiration.

Fall of the Berlin Wall? Moon landing?

Moments and figures drenched in awe, all capturing flashes of a connection to something bigger, a reminder of the remaining hope, wonders, and mysteries. (LIFE IS ALWAYS WEIRD.)

But here’s the most interesting thing about Keltner’s book: 

Among all the things that invoke awe in human beings -- collective effervescence (dance, sports, weddings, graduations, reunions, funerals, and rallies), natural phenomena (eclipses), music, art, mystical encounters, big ideas, epiphanies – Keltner found that “we are most likely to feel awe when moved by moral beauty.”

While physical beauty has the power to move us to infatuation and affection, he wrote, “Exceptional virtue, character, and ability – moral beauty – operate according to a different aesthetic, one marked by a purity and goodness of intention and action, and moves us to awe.”

We are drawn to these acts of moral beauty. There’s something innate in us that responds to it in a way that sends chills through our bodies and breathes new life into our spirits – as if the acts themselves are a conduit to the divine.

Cultivate. Ignore. Build prosperity.

So, while the eclipse comes once in a blue moon, here’s the good news:

The pursuit of awe doesn’t require a 3,000 mile drive to Texas. Post-eclipse, here’s the takeaway as we drive The Tank homeward.

Perhaps three new rules for life:

Cultivate moral beauty. Ignore the fear. Build prosperity.

 While the first one is more personal and subjective…

 The last two have a solid -- and more objective -- framework and strategy.

(Yes, crypto is involved in our strategy. More tomorrow.)