People who read my blog or talk to me will hear me mention the word "flow" on a repeated basis. It even sounds mystical after awhile as I've gone Jedi with it and call it "the Flow." What exactly is the Flow? The Flow is what I am feeling right now as I write this. It is what I feel all the time. It seems like something magical, but it isn't. It only sounds magical. Make no mistake on this. The Flow is a rational experience. It is real, and it will change your life.
The Flow is what you experience when you lose yourself in an activity. It could be a videogame or a project or a blog post. It can be something as mundane as washing dishes or something as grand as designing a new spacecraft that will travel to other planets. It matters little what the activity is because the experience is the same. You feel alive, and your sense of time changes. Surfers call it the stoke. Athletes say it is being in the zone. All of it is the Flow.
The Flow is what Aristotle called eudaimonia or the "good god within." A person with eudaimonia flourishes. He or she is truly happy in a robust sense. They exhibit virtue. They have an energy and enthusiasm for living that most people lack. This energy is often infectious and others pick up on it and feed off of it. This sense of energy is the Flow. It is a difficult concept to describe but very easy to demonstrate. When we see or meet a person in flow, we know it. We can attempt to capture flow in the abstract sense of the term, but it is better to see it in action. People with flow generally have an enthusiasm for living, an insatiable curiosity, and a strong desire for work and activities. They also have an uncanny ability to attract friends and enjoy extreme popularity. This is because people in flow demonstrate the sort of happiness that all of us should have.
People who don't live in flow are quite miserable despite their attempts to achieve happiness. Generally, this takes either a hedonistic/materialistic turn as people seek pleasure and vanity. Others reject this and embrace religious dogma and practice. Both of these groups of people are unhappy. They lack flow. The Flow eludes them.
The easiest way to have and enjoy flow is to start with the activities you already do. Most of us do things because we have to do them. The result is that these things become burdensome and torturous. But the things we choose to do tend to be enjoyable, light, and fun. There is nothing inherently good or bad in anything. These are merely value judgments we place on things. This is why an office drone finds drudgery in shuffling papers but will find immense pleasure from working in his garden. They are both work, but the choice is what makes the difference.
The way to make life pop with flow is to always choose what you do. You must find your own end in all the activities that you do. This practice is being autotelic which means to be self-directed. For instance, the office drone may choose to make a game of his work. As he does the work, he becomes better at it as he pursues his internal motivations more than his external motivations. This autotelic process can extend to all of life. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi writes:
An autotelic person needs few material possessions and little entertainment, comfort, power, or fame because so much of what he or she does is already rewarding. Because such persons experience flow in work, in family life, when interacting with people, when eating, even when alone with nothing to do, they are less dependent on the external rewards that keep others motivated to go on with a life composed of routines. They are more autonomous and independent because they cannot be as easily manipulated with threats or rewards from the outside. At the same time, they are more involved with everything around them because they are fully immersed in the current of life.
This quotation perfectly describes my own life. It also perfectly describes the life of another person I know. We don't care about money or status. We only care about being in flow and pursuing the things that make us passionate for living. It is also why I embrace a minimalist lifestyle because I find that more conducive to living in flow. I care more about the things I do than about the things I own or the money I earn.
Flow is happiness. Anything else is a counterfeit. It is a substitute for the real and flourishing life that Aristotle and Csikszentmihalyi describe. I have not always lived in flow. I discovered the Flow when I was 35 years old. 35 years is a long time to be unhappy. But I am 41 now, and the years since then have been the happiest of my life. I learned how to be happy, and this knowledge can never be taken from me. Living in flow is a practice and a discipline, but it is enjoyable. Nothing else in the world compares to it. And when you meet another person in flow, it doubles your own sense of flow. Their enthusiasm for living joins with your own. That has been a new experience for me.
The downside of living in flow is that sometimes you forget to eat or sleep. If that sounds odd to you, it shows that you are not truly happy. The experience of flow is so overwhelming and filling that your mind feels like it is on fire. Your entire being tingles with the energy from it such that you don't even feel pain or fatigue. This is because the conscious mind can only process so much, so everything else fades into the background including your own sense of hunger or minor injuries. It always puzzles me at the end of the day to see cuts, scrapes, and bruises acquired on the job. This is because I never felt them when they happened.
The other downside of flow is a frustration with wanting to do more than your resources allow. Most of the time, this limited resource will be time. Being happy is like having a bubbling fountain inside, but you only have a cup to drink from this fountain. You become greedy for life, but life has limitations. A great example would be wanting to read the entire internet. You can't do it all or experience it all. But it is a good problem to have.
There is only so much I can write about the Flow. It is difficult to describe, so it has to be experienced to be appreciated. Most people I know who live in flow don't even know what these terms are that I am using. But they recognize them immediately as descriptors of their own existence. These people stumble into flow almost accidentally. Usually, they are creative types or surfers or athletes. Since no one required them to be creative or active, they become self-directed in their activities which sparks the Flow. Some only experience flow when doing their activity. Others learn to let the Flow overflow into the rest of their lives. The ones who go on to this second level are the ones I consider to be truly happy. They turn their entire lives into a flow experience.
Most people don't know shit about the Flow. It eludes them. They hate their jobs, and they hate their lives. They seek status that leaves them empty. They seek possessions that leave them impoverished. They pursue pleasure that leaves them numb. This is the way of death. They don't see it that way. They think they are living the good life, and they go to great pains to tell this to themselves and others. They feel an urge to try and convince everyone of something they already know in their being to be untrue. They are trapped. Then, when they encounter someone else who is truly happy in this flourishing sense, they turn hateful and envious. They seek to destroy the happy person because that person's existence shows their own existence to be a complete lie. It is akin to a creationist buying dinosaur land in order to destroy the fossil record that conflicts with his myth.
If you are already in flow, none of this is new to you. You already know these things. If you are not in flow, you will read this and smirk and laugh and wonder what the C-man is smoking these days. But if you are in-between, you will find a certain tingle and excitement in your being at the prospect that you may have found what you have always been looking for. Let me tell you a secret, my friend. You have found it. I was just like you when I found it, and it has changed my life. It will change yours as well. Catch the Flow. Do whatever it takes. Learn it and live it. What will follow will be nothing short of amazing.
It is the fate of most to never know flow. There's little I can do about this fact except to write this essay or point to the work and examples of others. It is sad that people are unable to grasp this concept or to live it. But there are times and places in history when entire communities of people have been in flow. Those times are nothing short of amazing, and they will recur again and again in the future. I think the only thing necessary for this flourishing is freedom. This is why I am a libertarian. People who flourish simply need the diminishers to get out of their way.
The Flow is what you need. Get it. Live it. Find others with it. It will make your life.
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