flâneur

Frisson as Compass

ryangr.substack.com · 678 words · saved by 1 readers

On the sensation of meaning-making

For most of last year, I kept a meticulous list of all the experiences that gave me frisson — the physical sensation of awe, often experienced as shivers (“aesthetic chills”) during moments of beauty or insight. I didn't begin to feel them regularly until a few years ago, while I was reading Good and Real by Gary Drescher on the rooftop of my apartment in San Francisco. By then I had felt them a few dozen times in my life, and I had started to become aware of their association with some of my most meaningful and memorable experiences. I think it was exactly the conscious awareness of this…

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