Caitlyn King: Flow with Friends

 Flow /flō/

verb

proceed or be produced smoothly, continuously, and effortlessly.

noun

a steady, continuous stream of something.

a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.

Kip Redick wrote American Camino: Walking as Spiritual Practice on the Appalachian Trail, as a way to discuss how philosophical occurrences can happen in conversation with nature, on the Appalachian Trail. I have never walked the Appalachian Trail, and nor do I plan to (sorry, Prof.), but there are interesting things to gnaw over written in the pages of the book as it discusses perception and how the Trail can change you as you separate from one society and sort of make your way into another.

When I read Chapter 6 of American Camino: Walking as Spiritual Practice on the Appalachian Trail, I thought that flow was something I had never experienced. It didn’t seem possible to me. An activity that you become so immersed in that nothing else seems to matter sounds like a pipe dream. I am constantly thinking of things, never focused on tasks, worrying, thinking, stressing, wondering—I take a test and think of what I’ll have for dinner later, I take a walk and worry about my assignments, I cook dinner and wonder about what is on TV. I read and think about things I would write, and I write and think about things I would read. Thoreau said “What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?”

Well, if we’re pretending that the woods are the flow, then I got absolutely no business in the woods. The woods might actually have a restraining order on me, to be honest.

I keep trying to think of things. A singular activity. Maybe I need to use looser terms. A setting? A period of time? Yeah, that works better.

A period of time where I am so in the moment that I am wholly focused on the moment, calm, and without distractions. If I am now thinking about sections of time, rather than just one activity, it becomes easier to sort and identify when I can be considered in my flow. I try to shuffle through more of my memories to see if I can find something.

The only thing I can think of is when I am spending time with my friends. Oh wow, that sounds as cliche as starting with a dark and stormy night. But it is true, however cringe it can sound. With my friends, I am the closest I have ever been to this flow. There’s nothing on my mind except for them and whatever we are doing at the time. It’s a nice sort of peace when I can turn off my brain and just enjoy being in the company of those I like. I focus on my friends and whatever we do (wander, watch movies, eat, etc.) with all my attention and everything else is a distant concern in my mind. Is that what flow is? Thoreau also wrote that flow should be applied in activities that are dangerous, risky things that put the individual in a place where they are exposed to novelty and discovery. I am not in pain, and it is not risky, to be with my friends. I have no goal with my friends, except to grow closer and be in their company: is that close enough?

 I may have changing goals depending on the activities we do; studying, exploring, going somewhere new. Some of my friends have very odd sleep schedules, and we usually stay up very late at night. Usually, we are content with vending machine snacks and energy drinks, but sometimes we crave more specific things and go to the 711 located near the Ferguson. When my friends and I walk to the nearby 711, there’s nothing but me, them, and the cold biting at us. There is rhythm to our steps. Time becomes just a word. Is that the flow Csikszentmihalyi talked about? Spending time with my friends, even in a dorm building’s multipurpose room is nigh indescribable. Redick discussed that on the trail, being the flow obstructs thoughts being formed within a language; there is no immediate way to describe what was happening, because you can’t think of anything when you are in the flow. Hans-Georg Gadamer says that language muddies the relationship between the individual and the world; in Interpersonal Communications there is an idea that the language we speak changes how we view the world, and how we make sense of it.

Redick says that memories are ordered to be more meaningful in the present. Does he mean the past memories, or memories that are just as soon forming? Do memories need to be described? Is it not enough that they are happening? What if we never tried to thematize our memories, that somehow we could live purely in that moment, in that flow. Leeuw would consider it as us experiencing things only once, without reliving it as an image. I hear my friends laugh, and only later would I translate it into words, into verbs that would allow me to tell others. But if I never had to thematize that memory, then it could live in a pure state in my mind.

If things were like this, I would have no need for the prosaic. No need for something that can only act as a recorder. I am not a poet; I cannot use sufficient vocabulary in order to reach the transcendary world where memories take place.

Really, I think that the definition of flow may be limited in terms of Thoreau’s perception of it. Thoreau would not consider my experiences with my friends as flow; it is not a painful, or risky activity, it is not a type of hazing I go through in order to become stronger. Csikszentmihalyi proposes that we monitor our appearances in everyday life, to defend from potential slights. Is the alertness from this enough to qualify anything we do as flow? As we judge people, as Redick gazes and thinks upon the magazine model, would we be in the flow? Is there any correct definition of it in which it leaves nothing out? Probably. I like to believe we are always a part of a larger entity, whether it’s society, the universe, or if you want to be religious, God.

I could be horribly misunderstanding this. Always a possibility.