Lightning, Absorption and Flow
Commit to the bit.
I don’t need to be “productive” every minute of the day. But I’d like to spend more of my minutes absorbed.
Absorbed is a lovely thing.
Absorbed by the flavour of the food I’m eating. Absorbed by the breeze on my skin and the whisper of wind through summer leaves. Absorbed by the voice of the author of the book I’m reading.
Absorbed by the act of writing — much easier when I do so by pressing the tip of a pen to the smoothness of a page than by tick-tick-ticking away at this keyboard.
The difficulty I have with being absorbed is unsurprising given my repeated, desperate attempts to avoid the conditions for absorption at all costs.
I will watch any video, read any article, check the review of an album I know I’ll never listen to, read yet another news story that makes me feel awful about something far beyond my control, ingest a podcast about another country’s politics.
Anything to prevent myself from being in a sufficiently receptive state to notice that I am here, in this body with its many senses, surrounded by fascinating stimuli.
Why not get absorbed?
I’m not distracting myself because I’m afraid of being absorbed by things. I’m doing it because of my deep fear of what’s expected of me.
If I were to stop seeking those exits, wouldn’t I have to face up to my terrible responsibilities?
Like doing the job I’m paid for? Or talking to my beautiful kids? Or tidying up my lovely home?
My point is, the desire to run from pain is natural and human.
Unfortunately, what my mind tells me is painful and scary… usually isn’t
The sensual reality of any given moment tends to be delightful. And the practical realities are almost always more lovely than I give them credit for.
I like doing my work. I like talking to my children. I even — god help me — like tidying the house.
Some deep, childish, instinctual part of me thinks any of those things might be gravely dangerous, though, which is why I seem determined to anesthetize myself with digital content.
What’s here gets missed.
Getting absorbed is, in my experience, a necessary step on the way to flow.
When I am able to notice sensation and what’s happening in the moment, it increases the likelihood I’ll manage to slip into a flow state, which feels wonderful and brings me all sorts of creative ideas and thoughts.
Sometimes that absorption can even come from being bored. That’s what Rick Rubin talks about in this interview clip.
He calls himself the world’s laziest workaholic, and confesses that he often doesn’t even want to be in the rooms where he goes to help artists do what they do.
But it’s worth overcoming the laziness and facing the boredom to find those moments of revelation when everything suddenly clicks into place and you’re making magic.
I think of it as the equivalent of a lightning strike in my head: I will be wandering, looking, feeling, daydreaming, and suddenly some random thing bursts into my head.
Sometimes it’s a song. Sometimes an idea for one of these posts. Occasionally it’s a video script, or a comedy bit, or a poem.
Search and ye shall not find.
I don’t tend to do the absorption thing with any clear intention in mind. Sometimes I’m working on a problem and I’ll happen upon a solution, but much more often, it’s simply that I enter a state of not paying too much attention to myself, and then things arrive on their own.
I’ve also found some more structured ways to ensure that ideas arrive.
For instance, publicly committing yourself to share ideas in the form of articles (twice a week, in my case) is an excellent message to the brain that you’ll need two sets of ideas per week forever. This information may not even be in your conscious mind after a while, but it continues to work behind the scenes.
Over the past year or so, I’ve rarely struggled to come up with topics for this publication.
That’s not because I have some master list of things to write about. It’s because I know that I need to produce something twice a week, no matter what happens, and so something always arrives.
On vacation? Crushingly hung over? Loved one died yesterday?
Cool. You publish twice a week. And a song on Mondays. Get going.
In a way, the rigidity of my publishing cadence acts as an absorption mechanism: rather than forcing myself to sit down and plan ahead and come up with a bunch of stuff, around the time that I know I have to make one of these, some deep part of me drifts away and goes “huh — what’s floating around in here?”
And that little bolt of lightning strikes, and I get… a post about, in this case, how lightning strikes when I get bored or absorbed or short on time.
Absorption is simply a form of commitment.
My posting schedule is something I publicly committed to, which helps me stick to it. I know none of you would be bothered if I didn’t hit my deadline; most of you wouldn’t even notice.
But I have a firm internal commitment to make it on time, every time, and so I do.
In a way, becoming absorbed is also a commitment.
Can you commit to noticing how your shirt feels against your skin? To listening to the silence in the corners of the room you’re in? To seeing the way the light lands on the buildings at this time of day?
I understand if you can’t.
There is so much else going on. So many thoughts, all your worries, things to do.
Commit, though, if you can.
Commit to being here with what is here and to getting lost in it.
Stay with it. Feel your body. Sense through your senses.
Sooner or later, lightning strikes.