Living in Flow
Growing up, I was a total jock. There was something about chasing a ball that made my life complete in the way no other activity could. It wouldn’t be until 30 years later that I was diagnosed with high grade ADHD, which somewhat explains my need to burn some energy off but also that I had trouble sitting still, feeling settled, or seeing anything with real clarity for most of my lifetime. But out on the field, chasing something, was the closest I have ever been to the state of flow in my lifetime.
The state of “flow” was established in our collective cultural lexicon by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who studied happiness and creativity. He defined nine dimensions of the flow state, which are: challenge-skill balance, the merging of actions with awareness, having clear task goals, unambiguous feedback, full concentration on the task at hand, a sense of control, a loss of self-consciousness, a perception of the transformation of time, and an autotelic (or intrinsically rewarding) experience (see his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience or his Ted Talk for more). I also know that priest and priestesses, monks and religious scholars spend lifetimes practicing and trying to live in the flow state as a way of feeling closer to God (see mindfulness).
But it wasn’t until today, (and perhaps maybe due to the cumulative effect of years of therapy, self-help books and tapes, education, and now finally allowing myself to just say, BLEEP it, what else could possibly go wrong if I just try to believe in God) it occurred to me that I could just choose to live in flow all the time.
Jerry Seinfeld did a great bit in his standup in the 1990s, where he talks about his wife asking him what he was thinking about, and his response is, “Nothing, I’m just walking around, looking around” and I have always marveled at that ability. I think women and feminine people are particularly bad at this for reasons too numerous to mention here (most related to stress, trauma, and objectification), but today, I felt like there isn’t any reason why I can’t just opt to have so much faith that I just remove all thoughts of the past or future from my head.
A fear about my future burbles to the surface? Nope, sorry, not on my watch. That’s for God to figure out, not me. A concern about whether or not I really should have the audacity to write for public consumption? Sorry, I got a sign from God a while ago, and until I get another one telling me to stop, I sure ain’t gonna let my own brain get in the way. Who the hell is my brain anyway, standing in the way of my Good-given talent, especially when sunshine blasting in my eyes while I write about God has to be a sign to carry on, because in Good’s world there are no coincidences and God never really has ever asked for my input on life to begin with. Ever. It sure as BLEEP ain’t gonna start now.
You get the idea. So, I’ve been spending the day embracing my inner airhead. More and more often, I am focused more and more on just walking around, looking around, and waiting to see what happens… And I have to say, Jimniy Christmas, if you could see the view from here.