Ah.  So you spend the first two decades of your life being told that you’re special, that the future belongs to you.

Then, SPLAT!  You hit the real world and realise JUST how low on the totem pole you are.*
(Hugh Macleod)

The term [autotelic] literally means “a self that has self-contained goals,” and it reflects the idea that such an individual has relatively few goals that do not originate within the self.**
(Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)

Hugh Macleod reflects how some, on realising they are not the centre of the universe, find themselves set free:

‘But for a lucky few, it comes as a moment of joyous, amazing liberation.

Because now you don’t have to pretend anymore.  Because all that’s left is for you is do, is to find something genuinely useful for other people, or face starvation.’*

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi identifies three practices employed by autotelic people to set themselves from from the ego self and become people able to transform their situations and circumstances.  They practice unselfconscious self-assurance; focus their attention outwardly upon the world; and, are open to discovering new solutions

This brought to mind for me, Richard Rohr’s five elemental truths, gleaned from the rites of passage from traditional cultures (hence my doodle).  They shout as loudly today as they ever have.  Their intent is not to put people down but to liberate them to live life fully:

Life is hard;
Your are not as special as you think;
Your life is not abut you;
You are not in control; and,
You are going to die.

These are saying, Okay, got that?  Now we’re ready to live:

‘they are not self-centred; their energy is typically no bent on dominating their environment as much as finding a way to function within it harmoniously’.**

Philip Newell points to life being richer where things happen between people rather than in people:

‘We find our true centre not within the limited confines of our own individuality, family, or nationhood but within the connections between us.’^

There’s a difference between just wanting stuff and needing to provide for the mission we’re on.

There is nothing contradictory between this and Csikszentmihalyi’s self which claims the autotelic person’s goals mostly originate within her or him:

‘A person who pays attention to an interaction instead of worrying about the self obtains a paradoxical result.  She no longer feels like a separate individual, yet herself becomes stronger.’**

(*From gapingvoid’s blog: Where’s my trophy?)
(**From Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow.)
(^From Philip Newell’s The Rebirthing of God.)

You may think there is something else you need when you already have enough to begin.

The very thing you love is the place to look more closely.  Hugh Macleod says it simply:

‘The more you love, the harder you work.’*

Love not only provides you with what you need but also to take it further for the benefit of others, providing you with the sensitivity to find your way through the thing that stands in your way.  As Richard Sennett sees this, how instead of cursing something, to treat it as something to love:

‘when something takes longer than you expect, stop fighting it […] The identification a good craftsman practices is selective, that of findings the most forgiving element in a difficult situation’.**

It is your love for something that will take you through the pain and hurt that will surely come when pursuing the things that matter most to you.

Who’d have thought that love is such a crucial element of making more of what is already in your hand?

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in writing of the flow we seek to find for our lives points to this being where we are most alive, that is, most imaginative and creative as a species:

‘In fact, according to some views of evolution, complex life forms depend for their existence on a capacity to extract energy out of entropy – to recycle waste into structured order. […] all life on earth is ultimately made possible by dissipative structures that capture chaos and shape it into a more complex order.’^

This, we might argue, is one of the most critical challenges for our species today.  We may even see the development of a new hominid species – to take the waste we make and turn it into something hopeful instead of simply living with it.  Stephen Pyne writes of how are relationship with fire is different for us to those who went before us, instead of tending fire, making fire :

‘If tinder were nearby, the toolmaker became a fire maker.  Home erectus would maintain but probably not until Homo sapiens could humanity make it.’^^

Roz and Ben Zander write about the human capacity of turning around what spirals down, transforming it:

‘It is about restructuring meanings, creating visions, and establishing environments where possibility is spoken – where the buoyant force of possibility overcomes the pull of the downward spiral‘*^

When it comes to what is in your hand – the thing that allows you to recycle the chaos, what Richard Sennett calls ambiguity and the Zander’s the downward spiral – Warren Berger provides us with some helpful questions:

‘What do you want to say?  Why does it need to be said?  What if you could say it in a way that has never been done?  How might you do that?’^*

Csikszentmihalyi offers three practices of people who are able to cope with chaos and transform it into something more hopeful.  They are unselfconsciously self-assured, which I interpret as having humility, a true sense of Self (who they are and what they can do); they focus their attention on the world, which I translate as looking out or have gratitude for what is around them); and they are open to the discovery of new solutions, that is, they initiate (or are faithful for making something new out of what their humility and gratitude brings to them – the practice of letting go and letting come).^

One thing more I will add is that we were never meant to do this alone.  You need to join with others.  It’s a critical step and if you’re not prepared to do this, you may never really appreciate what you have in our hand:

‘It’s time to show up.  Find your people and get your show on the road.’⁺

(*From gapingvoid’s blog: Love is the only driver.)
(**From Richard Sennett’s The Craftsman.)
(^From Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow.)
(^^From Stephen Pyne’s Fire.)
(*^From Rosamund and Benjamin Zander’s The Art of Possibility.)
(^*From Warren Berger’s A More Beautiful Question.)
(⁺From gapingvoid’s blog: Leaders 4 Leaders.)

Shapes loom out of the darkness, uncertain and unclear: but the hooded stranger on horseback emerging from the mist need not be assumed to be the bearer of ill…

The night is large and full of wonders…*
(Lord Dunsany)

We all are haunted by something deep inside us, and often, a lot of our best work is the result of us trying to come to terms with this.

So what began life as a negative, over time became our greatest creative asset.  If that’s not a primary form of spiritual redemption, I don’t know what is.**
(Hugh Macleod)

Don’t write that person off.  There’s more to them than meets your eye, than meets their own eye.

We all get things wrong, make mistakes, but some of the most valuable things in life can be found among the most difficult experiences, even when we get things horribly wrong:

“The good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.”^

Too soon do we give up on others, give up on ourselves.

It’s a grace thing.

Grace isn’t some magical, pixie-dust thing.  Basically it’s a realisation that there’s nothing to stop us from keeping going: the universe and God aren’t going to get in our way.   No matter what has happened, we can begin again, a kindness we make available to ourselves and to others.

There is more.

(*Lord Dunsany, quoted in the Northumbria Community‘s Morning Prayer.)
(**From gapingvoid’s blog: Spiritual redemption.)
(^Seneca, quoted in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow.)

It is so absolutely quiet that each person can hear the heartbeat of the person to his right or his left.*
(Alan Lightman)

When you change the way you see things, the things you see change.**
(Wayne Dyer)

They sat together listening and talking, expecting to find some beauty in each other.

This had been their choice on entering the room.

(*From Alan Lightman’s Einstein’s Dreams.)
(**Wayne Dyer, quoted in Ben Hardy’s These 20 Pictures Will Teach You More Than Reading 100 Books.)

Until your dreams become emotional, they won’t be powerful enough.*
(Ben Hardy)

I have no special talents.  I am only passionately curious.**
(Albert Einstein)

We can over-focus on where we have come from – where we were born, our education, our looks and speed and height and such.  What about where we are going – our goals, our choices, our imaginations, our transformations and such

Rather than rue the person we are, better to design rites and rituals to become the person we want to be.

Bernadette Jiwa points to three curiosities: diverse, empathetic and epistemic.^  In other words be curious in a wide as possible way, notice the things you are most deeply curious about and turn these into deeper knowledge by trying them out.

It’s never too late to create our own rites and rituals.  The prefix “re” is a great gift to us.  Now we can recommit, return, realign, recapture, relearn.  When overlaid with daily writing, we spot who we are and what we must do:

“Writing organizes and clarifies our thoughts. Writing is how we think our way into a subject and make it our own. Writing enables us to find out what we know — and what we don’t know — about whatever we’re trying to learn.” ^^

There’s a place in the Judaeo-Christian scriptures telling of when Jacob is on the run, before he became renamed (theres another “re”) as Israel.  He goes to sleep and has a dream about a ladder reaching from the earth to heaven.  In the morning he says, “God was in this place and I did not know,” except the Hebrew apparently says, “God was in this place and I, I did not know.”

Now we can all know who we are and what is our contribution.

(*From Ben Hardy’s blog: These 20 Picture Will Teach you More Than Reading 100 Books.)
(**Albert Einstein, quoted in Wilson McNair’s Hatch.)
(^Bernadette Jiwa, quoted in Wilson McNair’s Hatch.)
(^^William Zinsser, quoted in These 20 Picture Will Teach you More Than Reading 100 Books.)

Wrap your heart in a wandering life.

A possibility materialises when our imagination and curiosity and empathy meet.

The modern narrative states who we are and what we do is set early and for life.

Wandering disrupts this storyline, journaling our imaginings sets them free.

Do not search for the answers, which could not be given to you now,
because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is to live everything.
Live the questions now.*
(Rainer Maria Rilke)

There is no greater adventure than to explore every day what it means to be human, not as someone else, but as who we are.

Adventure is to enter into something, escape, to leave something.

When we follow our questions, boundaries become borders to be crossed.

While some search for the perfect job, others create their own.

(*Rainer Maria Rilke, quoted in the Northumbria Community‘s Morning Prayer.)

Willpower is for people who are still uncertain about what they want to do.*
(Helia)

Longing is the deepest and most ancient voice in the human soul.  It is the secret source of all presence and the driving force of all creativity and imagination: longing keeps the door open and calls towards us gifts and blessings of which our lives dream.**
(John O’Donohue)

In their original meanings, an amateur is one who loves what they do and a dilettante someone who takes delight in.   In exploring flow and identifying amateur scientists who made significant breakthroughs, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi writes:

‘They simply did what they enjoyed doing.’^

At the end of our days, life doesn’t get better than this.  If we end up being paid for this and bring rigour to what we do, then we can count ourselves blessed.

We can all pursue what we love and delight in with rigour.  It may be not where the big money is found but there are lots of significant things big money isn’t interested in.

(*Helia, quoted in Ben Hardy’s These 20 Pictures Will Teach You More Than Reading 100 Books.)
(**From John O’Donohue’s Eternal Echoes.)
(^From Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow.)

Isolated in the freezing night, [Icelanders] used to chant their poems huddled around fired in precarious hurts, while outside the winds of the interminable arctic winters howled.  If the Icelanders had spent all those nights in silence listening to the mocking wind, their minds would have filled with dread and despair.  By mastering the orderly cadence  of metre and rhyme, and encasing the events of their own lives in verbal images, they succeeded instead in taking control of their experiences.*
(Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)

When Jesus left his peace with his followers I have to wonder whether he knew that the best things would come from a place of peace that we each find, rather than the rush and push, the  hotheadedness and bloodymindedness for achievement, we can fall into valuing.

It may work in the short-term but the Icelandic winter reminds us that life is about the long-term and we have to find the kind of peace that makes it possible to turn up with the best solutions again and again.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is exploring the flow of thought, and it is in the different things we value and enjoy thinking about that we will find peace.  Warren Berger reminds us that peace is very practical, very practical indeed:

‘Part of being able to tackle complex and difficult questions is accepting there is nothing wrong with not knowing.  People who are good at questioning are comfortable with uncertainty.’**

(*From Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow.)
(**From Warren Berger’s A More Beautiful Question.)

It’s ever easier to weave our own reality, to find a bubble and to reinforce what we believe with what we hear.  We can invent our own rules, create our own theories, fabricate our own ‘facts’.

It turns out, though, that when your reality is based on actual reality, it’s a lot more stable and resilient, because you don’t have to be so vigilant about what you’re going to filter out.*
(Seth Godin)

Contrary to what we tend to assume, the normal state of the mind is chaos.
(Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)

In his groundbreaking work on how people find happiness in their lives, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, provides three flows that proffer an alternative way for ordering our lives than routine or some unquestioned order:

‘The integrated cells and organs that make up the human organism are an instrument that allows us too get in touch with the rest of the universe.’**

The first is the body in flow, when we are lost in the beauty and wonder of the world through which we move – in small and large and all things between – as the walking sensor arrays we are:

‘The body is like a probe full of sensitive devices that tries to obtain what information it can from the awesome reaches of space.’**

It is through my body that I am writing to you and through yours that you are receiving this – the technology between us only allows us to extend our reach to one another:

‘It is through the body that we are related to one another and to the rest of the world.  While this connection itself may be quite obvious, what we tend to forget is how enjoyable it can be.  Our physical apparatus has evolved so that whenever we use its sensing devices they produce positive sensation and the whole organism resonates in harmony.’

Food and travel and sex are some of the simplest ways of organising what otherwise might become chaotic but then we do more, we play mind games: the flow of thoughts.

Memory and its organisation allows what comes to us from the past to be so important for arranging the present.  Philosophy, science, and history are ways of thinking that we enjoy and can be lost in.  If we named the things we enjoy thinking about, they will likely fall into one of these.  We can so love to think about certain things that we can be lost in thought.

We are increasingly opening ourselves to what is around us rather than only within us, through what our bodies are sensing and our minds are thinking, but, as we know, there is more: the flow of work, of making something out of what we experience and think about and feel for.  Largely we may describe people as scientists or sales-people or artists or machinists but the diversity or individuality is far greater.  As Anne Lamott holds out:

‘The world has an awful beauty.’^

But with extras.

(*From Seth Godin’s blog: Reality-based reality.)
(**From Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow.)
(^From Anne Lamott’s Hallelujah Anyway.)