Wake-Up Call of a Peak Experience
Ralph Waldo Emerson and Abraham Maslow were important thinkers in the tradition of radical individualism upon which our country was founded. They both understood that it isn’t a conditioned, rote (i.e. brainwashed) good citizenship but rather individual peak experiences that bring people most fully into the brotherhood and sisterhood of human life.
These peak experiences can come from either end of the emotional spectrum, from sorrow or joy, from a great loss or a great gain, whatever awakens us out of the mesmerism of daily life and reconnects us with the strangeness and vulnerability of our existence.
Maslow, who coined the expression, had his first “peak experience” when he held his firstborn child. Ironically, although I hadn’t heard of Maslow at the time, so did I—21 years ago this winter, when my son was born.