The Overview Effect

The overview effect is a cognitive shift reported by some astronauts while viewing the Earth from space. Researchers have characterized the effect as "a state of awe with self-transcendent qualities, precipitated by a particularly striking visual stimulus". The most prominent common aspects of personally experiencing the Earth from space are appreciation and perception of beauty, unexpected and even overwhelming emotion, and an increased sense of connection to other people and the Earth as a whole. The effect can cause changes in the observer's self concept and value system, and can be transformative.

Until I read that, the idea of going into space held less than zero appeal to me. In fact when I would think about being catapulted away from planet Earth at high speeds (approximately 25,000 miles per hour) I would feel the beginnings of real panic. While contemplating getting shoved into a tin can and jettisoned into space, I would start to have the racing heart, pounding ears, sweaty palms, and the rest of those “charming” harbingers of a trip to the emergency room for what must surely be an impending heart-attack.

I felt that way forever about space travel, that is until I became obsessed with the overview effect and the amazing transcendental perception shifts that have happened to several of the astronauts who have gone into orbit and even stood on the moon. 

Lately I’ve gone down an “overview effect rabbit hole”, which has made the idea of going into space a little less terrifying and a lot more interesting.

Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut and also the sixth man on the moon famously said on viewing Earth from a distance: “You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say “look at that, you son of a bitch”.

Michael Singer, author of The Untethered Soul and one of my favorite spiritual teachers, often lectures his devotees on the overview effect and why seeing the earth from that distance can suddenly, immediately, cause a profound perception shift. He also, gently but firmly, schools us on why all our ceaseless human gripes and complaints and dissatisfactions with ourselves or others are petty and as he so bluntly puts it “a complete waste of time”.

He urges us all (citing, as he is wont to do, all the most recent stats) to understand where we are in time and space.

All of us live and work and play and love and hate on the only planet in our galaxy, and in fact the entire universe, that we have, so far, been able to see that supports life. And not just some life. Our planet is teeming with it. From a blade of grass to an elephant to every single person lucky enough to have been blessed with a human experience, life on Earth is omnipresent and abundant.

Most of us live trapped inside of our own tiny frame of reference. We focus on what gurus and shrinks and healers of all ages have called the ego or the personal self. We obsess over the past and the future, our likes and dislikes, our preferences and expectations of ourselves and others. Mr. Singer often urges his listeners, in his weekly lecture series, of the need to remove our heads from our posteriors, if even for five minutes per day, and to WAKE UP to what is really going on all around us. We need, he advises us, to expand our frame of reference. Away from our egos and toward the reality of our situation.

And what exactly is that reality? We live on Earth along with eight billion other humans. Planet Earth is an old (4.5 billion years approximately) relatively tiny ball of dirt suspended in endless, timeless, fathomless space. About 1.3 million earths could fit into what we call “the Sun”. Planet earth revolves around this Sun. 

The Sun is a 4.5 billion-year-old yellow dwarf star - a hot glowing ball of hydrogen and helium - at the center of our solar system. The Sun is approximately 93 million miles from Earth and it’s our solar system's only star. Without the Sun's energy life as we know it could not exist on our home planet. 

The Sun is one of 300 billion stars in our galaxy.

We live in the Milky Way galaxy.

Besides the Milky Way there are close to 176 billion other galaxies in the universe…that we know of.

And what about all those gorgeous stars that we see twinkling away far above us on clear and crisp nights? How far away are all those stars from us?

The nearest star to us is 4.2 light years away.  You would need to travel at the speed of light (which is pretty darn fast) for 4.3 years without stopping to even arrive at the nearest star. 

All galaxies are made up of hundreds of billions of stars.

And how far away is our closest galaxy? The Andromeda galaxy? 

It is approximately 2.5 million light years away. 

And it just keeps going. The deeper into space we get the more insignificant or miraculous (depending on your perspective) planet Earth appears. It’s enough to make your head spin. 

And how long will we be here? On this gorgeous blue ball suspended in timeless space? Eighty years? Maybe ninety? Maybe a hell of a lot less. The absolute truth is that none of us know when the grim reaper will show up on our doorstep, take us by the hand, and ask us to kindly follow him into the great beyond.

If the Earth exploded today it would mean nothing at all in terms of our galaxy. It would be an inconsequential happening. It would be comparable to swatting a gnat dead on a hot summer night, meaningless (except for the poor dead gnat of course). It would be, in terms of space, a non-event. Possibly a few stars might shift a tiny bit…but probably not. 

 We are blessed with a human vessel to experience ALL that a human life can present us with. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the miraculous. We were not plopped down here to just experience the things that we want to experience. “What are you so worried about?” Michael Singer wants to know. “What’s so important?” he asks. 

“But it is important!” I want to say. “To me anyway. 

These are my likes and dislikes. My preferences. This is my life and I need to control everyone and everything in it. Things need to go my way!”

But do things always go my way? They do not. In fact, in retrospect I see that it is my absolute hardest times, my most uncomfortable life experiences that have taught me the most. 

I’m working on shedding my personal self and all my petty human gripes. And when I find myself trapped in the swirling maelstrom of my mind I will often run to Google and look up a picture of “Earth as seen from space”.

And if the photo doesn't do the trick, I have a tiny piece of paper shoved into my wallet, folded and unfolded so many times that the seams are falling apart. On it I have written down a quote (it's actually a few quotes mashed together) from Thomas Pesquet, my favorite zero-gravity saxophone-playing French astronaut.  This is what he said about his own overview effect after living for a whopping 196 days, 17 hours and 49 minutes in space. His words always serve to get me out of my head and into the bigger picture: 

“There are no borders. Even your own country - it’s impossible to make out where France ends and Germany begins. You just realize, very strongly, how much we all share the same problems, how much we are, all of us, almost identical. In space you take this huge step back and see this tiny, fragile planet. This delicate band of atmosphere that holds all of life, with nothing else around it for billions of light years. The earth is actually just a big spaceship, with a very very big crew. It has to travel sensibly, be maintained and looked after properly, or its voyage is going to come to an end.”

Put in that context, the fact that my client did not return my call, my friend hurt my feelings, and my Amazon package didn't arrive today (even though I was assured it would) don’t seem like such “total disasters” after all.