finding awe in MocMoc and other little things

Yesterday, two podcasts that I listened to while doing work around the house lined up in such a perfect way that I wanted to write down my memory of the moment. First, because I was recently reminded of the fantastic podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text (which applies sacred reading techniques to the Harry Potter series, treating it as serious and meaningful without letting it—or its author—off the hook for being problematic), I’ve been trying to catch up with its second runthrough of the book series, in the perhaps-vain hope that I can start listening to episodes as they come out. In one episode I listened to yesterday, the hosts spoke on the theme of awe. One of the hosts put it this way:

In my own sense of what awe is, there’s just a touch of, like, fear… Something about standing there and, like, recognizing oh my gosh, the world is more complicated, and rich, and wonderful than even my brain could imagine. I got [only] a glimmer of it today.

This specific description was connected to an experience of awe in the natural world, but they also mentioned the similar feeling of visiting a new place and realizing that people there have a rich and beautiful existence that had never occurred to the visitor before. This seemed to echo my favorite experiences from learning about language(s) and culture(s)—and that comparison became particularly apt later in the day.

Early in the week, I’d had a conversation with a friend who had recently visited Switzerland, and that inspired me to start getting back into yet another podcast: Gare à vous on Radio Télévision Suisse, where the host visits different Swiss towns, starting at their train stations and then learning more about the town. Last week’s episode visited Romanshorn, a beautiful town on the shores of Lake Constance. I’d gotten a taste of this region in a series of videos by the French train YouTuber Urban Traveler (here’s the first—they’re all full of gorgeous scenery and fun adventures), but having spent all my time in Switzerland on the other side of the country, I didn’t know much about Romanshorn or Lake Constance. I was delighted, then, to learn about a sea monster who appeared in local stories and who appears in statue form near the train station:

(Bahnhof Romanshorn: “mocmoc” des Künstlerduos Com&Com vor dem Coop Pronto by JoachimKohlerBremen is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

A day later, I’ve already forgotten much of the details about “MocMoc,” but there’s something about the story and the statue that reminds me that as hard as I try to appreciate experiences and ideas outside of my own little world, there’s still so much more richness in others’ experiences that I can only get a taste of. It keeps me humble, it keeps me awe-struck, and it even keeps me hopeful. When life feels small and meaningless, little things like MocMoc remind me that there’s a lot of grandeur and meaning in even the smallest elements of human existence—and that that is worth celebrating.

EDIT: I must have missed something in the episode (or else the episode withheld some important details!), because there’s an important part of the MocMoc story that I’m now discovering just after having posted this (of course). According to a Google Translated version of this German-language article on SwissInfo, MocMoc is not a traditional legend being celebrated at the train station but rather a legend fabricated as part of a PR campaign to bring attention to the town when the train station was being renovated. Fortunately, this doesn’t let too much air out of my hopeful balloon—whether this was a 21st century controversy or an ancient myth, the story of MocMoc is still a story that reminds me how many meaningful human stories I have yet to discover!

• macro
• Myself
• Harry Potter and the Sacred Text
• Gare à vous
• Radio Télévision Suisse
• Vanessa Zoltan
• awe
• hope
• existential dread
• YouTube
• trains
• Urban Traveler
• MocMoc