Beauty is Unity in Variety
When I rowed on the Charles River (1980), the state of flow was often triggered. It's that place where action and awareness merge, and you feel a tremendous amount of self control and focus. What is even more amazing is the total lack of emotion(s) in this spaciousness You can't create experiences like this, you undergo them. Today, in Henley-On-Thames, I jump into a light single and skull down the river-someday is the longest day of the week, but someday I'm rowing down The Thames!For sure.
The Secret is about results, flow is about process rather than achievement. The ends justify the means is about the outcome. Flow is means without ends-the joy is simply doing it, but doing it optimally is, nonetheless the consequence.
Travels Chemical Romance- DOPE-amine
20,ooo Leagues Into My Brain, the 3lb Universe and The Travel Molecule. Our brains aren't computers-they are quantum fields of gold! Belive meFlow is a lose of self but Peak experience(s) leave me with a sense of self. My brain makes me travel. Even thinking about leaving a port of call for some imagiNATION generates a roller coaster ride of flight and fantasy ---a flood of dopamine that signals to my body that something good has or is about to happen.
Dopamine is a swiss army knife that does a lot of jobs, but the thing Mr. Science notices most is that it regulates reward. When I travel to some far away place, it's a dopamine spike that's responsible for the thrill that follows. Drugs, legal and illegal-mimic the actions of dopamine in the brain. Dopamine is a chemical which makes us feel elated; crystal meth is so addictive because it releases dopamine. More than that, The brain images of drug addicts who are about to take another hit are indistinguishable from those of sailors who are at sea (I am making this up).
Peak Experiences provide water/landmarks of positive experiences that I can recall and savor throughout the rest of my life or as I have come to know it-the stopover between being and oblivion, that blissful repose of nothingness.
York, UK last month |
Mysticism and Exaggeration ---"Holy Cow!" hyperbole go together
PE's are those moments, gone in 60 seconds to a few minutes, where I feel my highest levels of happiness, synchronicity and promise. It's real magic where my consciousness becomes storyteller. The teachable moment being: PE's insinuate the recognition that my own powers are far greater than I imagined them to ever be.
I have had so many of these PE's while sailing. It's no stretch---Nature has a way of showing up and producing wonder, awe, or ecstasy.