74; Flow

Paranoia is a subject very dear to me. It’s granted that neuroses are, by in large, Bad Things. Neuroses don’t, after all, do anything for you, do they? Some people might argue that phobias are useful since heights, spiders, ducks and doctors all are potential threats. The likelihood of them having any dangerous impact on your life, however, is kind of slim. And yet no one has phobias of heart disease, or bathtubs, which are responsible for…

Flow interruption. Writing, painting, ceramics, data entry, conversation, cooking: whatever it is you like to do or find yourself doing frequently you develop a flow to your work or art or pleasure. There’s just as much flow on the slopes or fly-fishing as there is reading or writing.

I wonder, at times, what is the goal of humanity. At other times, however, the more appropriate question is what is most important for humans. Is our goal, as so many have postulated, personal happiness? Is it achieving our true potential? Think back on the moments in your life when you felt you were living up to your fullest potential, as whomever it is you wish to be. Compare those memories to the times when you were happiest. Is there one that is of greater value than the other, or would talking about the value of such things be meaningless?

Perhaps our greatest moments are when we have our flow. Certainly when we achieve flow we are doing something we are good at. Often our flow corresponds with activities we enjoy doing: exercising, sex, cooking, gardening, coding, working, playing.

(Aside. Why do we not say ‘sexing’? Sex should be treated as a verb, shouldn’t it? It’s something you do, after all. Heck, ‘doing it’ has been code for sex since third grade. Yet we render it passive as something you have. Like a houseplant, or a good dinner. But you don’t say “I’m having a good dinner.” You say “I’m eating.” People wonder why the F word is overused, it’s because the F word’s coital implications actually act like a verb. It conjugates when ‘sex’ loafs about, totally dependent on the already overused ‘have’ to conjugate for it. And people wonder why ‘sex’ is treated with such disrespect.)

So I throw forth my theory that humans are supposed to flow for their living. It doesn’t much matter what your flow is, unless murdering, so long as you feel fulfilled while doing it. Of course culture will fall apart, followed by society, and then all of civilization. But we’d all just be in our groove and not minding it.

That is, until trash collection day.