The Physics of Flow - Finding the Flow (part 4 of 5)
In the first three parts of this series, I introduced flow from the perspective of physics, talked a little about how to recognize it, and discussed some of its benefits. Now I want to get deeper into how we may find (and refind) flow when we get stuck.
In order to get into the flow and catch its guidance, it is useful to be able to recognize the threads of meaning between events in our lives. I introduced the process of meaningful history selection, by which similar branches of the “tree of possibilities” are naturally grouped together. We can expect that meaningful circumstances will arise as we proceed through our personal or professional day. Yet how do we discern what to pay attention to? Is every circumstance meaningful? How do we know which direction the flow is in? In order to make headway on these questions, we need to distinguish between the usual “physical cause and effect” and what we can call “meaningful cause and effect,” which follows from meaningful history selection.