been contemplating flow again
not a first
flow appears in my mind, again and again.
sometimes, i find myself thinking about it while inside of it. the ana inside acknowledges the smoothness of the hours, days, weeks, in the momentum.
but most often, i notice when time and life suddenly lose the quality of flow.
i mostly associate flow with a pleasant feeling. a general sense of ease with waves of unease coming and going, but the baseline remains.
there’s a right distance taking place… in relation to people, events, feelings.
the bad or the unpleasant isn't taken too seriously,
the good isn't amplified to delusional scenarios.
both states come and go and what remains is the you-baseline.
this might be one of the definitions of adulthood. hello!
in the early days of black horse mansion, the video collective i’m part of since 2014, we embraced a loose approach to professional decisions. in a nutshell, we allowed the "flow" of opportunities and our timid interests to guide the projects. it was more out of ignorance, then strategy, but later on, i embraced this attitude as strategy, which feels even more relevant today.
currently trying to refresh it in my actions, personal and professional.
fill my time more with my own interests,
find the right parties, for me.
live more on the creative side of life, not just in spirit, but in action. in motion.
work with new people. guide, direct, make ideas i love happen. be surrounded by people who get this, at least partially. more on that soon.
like when you’re in an intersection and decide to cross the street where the lights turn green. basically, allow the data in the environment to influence me in being less rigid. it’s possible that sometimes the data is too subtle and easy to miss, or inconclusive. that’s alright.
i noticed that good ideas or directions usually pop-up up quite a few times. they’re like a human on the street with a sign held above their head. the copy reads “look at me. this way”, with bigger and brighter lettering.
understanding your own raw data, that space between inner and outer landscapes, becomes the practice.
seems that once you start using the word practice,
everything becomes it. practice.
i can't tell yet if it's just the newness of the concept settling into my life and vocabulary or if simply: practice explains a lot of how life works. and guess what:
mostly good practices most likely make a good life,
mostly bad practices most likely make a frustrating life.
and now… a snippet from the series of NPM (noticings per minute):
i’m at the gym, at the end of the workout, in the sauna. btw, i still can’t tell if it’s good for me or not. the sauna. anyway. people come in, people walk out. a person says “have a good day” on the way out. i have a sensation and it take me a minute to decode it. i’ve heard this phrase a million times and most of the times i think nothing of it. for most people who say it it’s a mechanical phrase, devoid of meaning. but this particular “have a good day” landed differently in this space of gym - this modern ritual site for urban humans.
because for most people, myself included, going to the gym involves a lot of motivation and intention. also, usually, it’s the thing that gets cut off when things get extra busy or you need to cut cots. so, the umph behind this “have a good day” said/ heard in the sauna of a gym, had the energy of having prioritized doing something for yourself that will most likely make your day good, especially on the inside. so, it lands differently.
i think this example sets up the conditions for flow, when something is off. sure, going to the gym, but also noticing and contemplating those moments that feel truer than others. which is to say, it’s nice when intention aligns with action, which aligns with speech, which most likely leads to f l o w.
bonus: i took this text (written without machine help) and poured it into an LM (language model instrument) because i saw someone doing this the other day and it caught my attention.
below, a generated audio conversation, a sort of radio talk show where my text in discussed, sometimes critiqued. “lively deep dives discussions that summerise the key topics in your sources”. oddly mesmerizing, for me, at least. not sure how i feel about it, but i was intrigued by the experiment and happy i didn’t have to record myself read the text. special dedication to those inclined to audio, rather than text.
disclaimer: some blabla words exist, but all in all, it feels like i hired two actors to play two radio hosts and dissect the ideas in my mind. the anabanubada audio show.
NIS (nothing is static) is a lo-fi feelthink tank, an informal space where thinking and feeling co-exist. mostly in text. every now and then, i will invite fellow lo-fi ranters to join the conversation.