When Was Last Time You Saw Something Sublime?

Feeling burned out? Pay attention.

When was the last time you saw something sublime?

I’m not sure if this was my last time, but it was a memorable one.

It was Friday, December 6, 2024, in a little coffee shop in Quebec City called the Ma Station café. Sometime around 8:00 a.m.

I was on a much-needed vacation from a job I disliked. My first real vacation that year in fact. In December. Needless to say, I was a little burned out. To paraphrase the great Jon Foreman, “I began to believe that all we are is material.”

I was more body than soul, and it was starting to show.

So, I called up my friend Aaron, and we hung out in Montreal for a couple days before I went on to Quebec City by myself. I’m not really one to sleep in on vacation, due to a profound fear of missing out. So, this particular morning, I was out for a walk in the frigid morning air. The weather was in the teens (fahrenheit, that is), and I was in search of a warm drink to wake me up and clear my head.

On my walk, I stumbled half-awake into the aforementioned coffeeshop. To be honest, it’s the kind of place that might look more at home in California or Miami, with its hot pink mood lighting, minimalistic vibes, and tropical plants. Maybe that was a smart business move in Quebec City, to try to help people forget they lived in a frozen landscape.

But the most important part for this story is that there was a piano.

Ma Station Cafe, Quebec City. Picture Credit: Colin Black

There I was, sitting and relaxing for a few minutes, when in came a blue-collar worker, complete with a scruffy beard and high-vis stripes on his pants. He sat down at the piano and began to play. I don’t remember what he played, whether it was an original tune or some classical piece I should have recognized. But I do remember the feeling that washed over the coffeeshop. It was as if a sense of peace and serenity had invaded the place, and everyone involuntarily stopped to watch and listen.

The whole experience only lasted about 5 minutes, and when it was over, it was met with a bit of a laugh from the worker and the two men working at the coffee bar. I couldn’t tell whether they knew each other, but I think the reason they laughed is that sometimes you just don’t know how to react to something like that.

How are you supposed to react when something profound, unexpected, and un-asked-for happens in front of you? I think perhaps the only two fitting reactions are laughter or awe.

A year later, I’m still thinking about this moment.

So, back to our original question. When was the last time you saw something profound?

When was the last time you saw something that made you feel a sense of awe or wonder? That made you want to cry? That made you think maybe you’d been spending too long out in the cold and too little time inside listening to the music?

I think there’s a lot of moments like this all around us, but we’re either 1) too busy to notice, or 2) too embarrassed to point it out.

To the first point, it’s pretty easy to be too busy.

Trust me, I understand. I went an entire year only doing a vacation in December (actually 3 years in a row, but that’s another story). It’s pretty easy to go to work, sit down at your computer, crank out emails and presentations all day long, drive home, watch something on Netflix, and go to bed.

At night, you might think to yourself “Did anything good even happen today? Do I even remember what happened, good or bad?”

String enough of these days together and you get a boring, unfulfilling life.

That said, what’s even worse than being busy is becoming so drawn into modern-day materialism that you simply stop looking for the sublime.

Or, that you become too afraid to talk about it.

In his essay on Joseph Frank’s biography of Dostoevsky, David Foster Wallace explains that the prevailing sentiments of modern society are cynicism and skepticism. Modern literature (and movies) have become less sincere. Any moments of sincerity are tongue-in-cheek or ironic.

This feeling has reached beyond art and literature, into the world of business. Profound life lessons are often reduced to a 10 point list of “my top takeaways from x major life event.” Observations and ideas are often reduced to levers that drive bottom-line profit. Lunch conversations revolve around football, reality tv, and credit card points.

Why? Why are we so afraid to just open up to other people? To share about that great sunset we saw, that book quote that really touched our hearts, that childhood memory that makes life meaningful?

Perhaps it’s because profound moments ask something of us. They ask us to stop and notice. They ask us to take stock of our lives. They ask us to live differently.

Stopping to watch a sunset requires us to admit that there’s something bigger than our lives that’s worth watching. Taking the time to actually get to know your coworkers means risking that they’ll learn too much about you, or that you’ll learn too much about them, and now you’ll be obligated to be friends.

Or, in my case, sitting and listening to a construction worker play piano raises the question whether I’ve been living too much for the wrong things.

There’s a quote, often attributed to Dolly Parton, “Don’t be so focused on making a living that you forget to make a life.”

But it’s so easy to do this. There’s always bills to pay, projects to finish, and deadlines to meet. So many that they can make us forget what’s really important.

So how do you avoid this trap?

First, pay attention.

Pay attention to what’s beautiful and sublime.

Pay attention to the everyday moments.

Then, share these moments with someone else.

Don’t let the cynics get you down.