The Physics of Flow - Flow and Meaning (part 2 of 5)
Testing the Flow
In my physics masters program, I had a friend named Jonas. We had talked about my research on meaningful coincidences a few times, but he was skeptical, as any physicist should be.
During our last semester, he was waiting to hear back from PhD programs that he had applied to. It turned out he was accepted at a great school, but it was in a very expensive town and was a long drive from his family. The school which he really wanted to attend had put him on the waitlist. This was an urgent concern, because the school he wanted was near his home, and would allow him to survive on a much smaller budget and be close to his family.
I gave him the advice I generally offer around finding more synchronicity in life. I said, “Act like you really, really want it, even if you think it can have no effect. Maybe drive to campus and seek out the right person to talk to. If you can't find the right person, just talk to anyone there you meet, and see what connections you make. Read papers by professors on campus you might want to do research with. Take initiative and be directed, but remain openminded.”
The idea is that his intentions determine what apples appear on the tree of possibilities, and the actions he takes shift the landscape of branches on the tree of possibilities to make the arrangement of apples more “meaningful,” or uneven. This means he can gradually build momentum toward his goal if he ends up on branches which have more apples on them.