Vanishing Awe: Navigating the Crisis of Spiritual Emptiness

The feeling of having lost the ability to admire the world can turn into a deep inner emptiness, when even an unwavering love for nature is no longer capable of filling the soul with joy. In the past, every petal or even a tiny stone would awaken a storm of emotions, providing genuine ecstasy and opening a portal into the boundless magic of the world. However, over time, these surges of delight give way to bouts of inexplicable melancholy, and familiar images lose their sacredness, evoking only a fleeting tenderness. This emotional decline is accompanied by a spiritual crisis: the ability to perceive one’s surroundings as something exalted and meaningful deteriorates, and those inner reserves that once nourished faith, creative inspiration, and a deep sense of awe before life become paralyzed. This shift signals that we have lost not only aesthetic pleasure but also the key to spiritual rebirth, indicating the need to search for new energy to restore inner harmony.


What happens to a person who has lost the ability to admire the world around them?


A person who has lost the ability to admire the world around them begins to feel deep inner emptiness and melancholy, despite their continued love for nature. In the past, nature evoked genuine ecstasy in them, with even the smallest details—every flower or stone—serving as sources of tenderness and joy. However, over time, the palette of their emotions changes: former outbursts of delight yield to bouts of inexplicable, formless melancholy, and even familiar objects that once inspired them now rarely evoke true tenderness.

At the same time, an inner spiritual crisis unfolds—not because the surrounding world deteriorates, but because the person’s ability to perceive it as sacred and significant declines. Their emotional and spiritual faculties, intended to seek out sanctity and transcend material existence, become paralyzed, losing the strength of faith, devotion, and creative ability. Thus, the loss of the ability to admire leads to a profound internal collapse, affecting both the emotional state and the spiritual foundation of the individual.

Supporting citation(s):
"In the past, nature would bring me to ecstasy, and my heart was ready to burst with delight; now I continued to love nature, but when I was alone with it, I began experiencing particularly acute bouts of inexplicable and formless melancholy. … I was rarely moved by the sight of a flower or stone." (source: link )

"He increasingly understands that his life has been defiled and yearns for sanctity. … His spiritual life seems depleted and weakened; he lacks the strength of faith eroded by doubt, the power of unconditional devotion. The emotional-spiritual faculties, which are meant to discover sanctity and exalt it, seem stricken with paralysis." (source: link )