First published in 1990, Flow, by Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi, is a psychology classic that still get referred to all the time among sports enthusiasts, biohackers, and those interested in finding the elusive ‘optimal experiences’. I finally read the book cover to cover and thoroughly enjoyed all of it. I found myself nodding in agreement, chuckling quietly, and enthusiastically agreeing. Flow is defined as “joy, creativity, the process of total involvement with life.” We’ve all been there – in the zone – and we all wish we could be there more often. Rather than give easy steps and recipes to follow, the author starkly reminds us that the best moments in life usually occur when we are stretched and challenged to the limit, and that these experiences are not necessarily pleasant in the moment. Yet people will voluntarily keep returning to harshly challenging experiences, and in those experiences, find a sense of freedom. Think extreme sports, concert pianists, professional chess players, mad artists…the list goes on. Being completely absorbed in what one is doing is being in flow. This book is a nice reminder that life is hard, always has been and always will be, but it is because it is so hard, not in spite of it, that finding flow is possible. Gosh darn it, so easy to forget when we’re constantly wishing for more ‘leisure’ time to do absolutely nothing!
Another book I’m about three quarters of the way through, and which I’m loving, is My Leaky Body, by Toronto author Julie Devaney. This ends up being a very harsh criticism of the Western medical system told by somebody suffering horribly from the autoimmune condition ulcerative colitis. Devaney spares no detail of the effect the disease has on her body, on her career, and her relationships. Though the world of medical science knows virtually nothing about the causes of the many known autoimmune diseases, and though there are no known cures, Devaney has to deal with an almost endless chain of medical professionals convinced of their own indispensability (ahem, read: godlike powers). Very few of them give any weight to her own opinions about her disease, or her own experience of the disease. This book is a loud cry for changes in the way doctors are trained and how they relate to patients. Devaney, though beaten down repeatedly by the faculty in her graduate program, who choose to be clueless about her chronic disease, and by the many uppity doctors and specialists she has to deal with, finds her voice, loud and clear. Watch Out, this is potent, dark, funny!
Lastly, The sports gene: inside the science of extraordinary athletic performance, by David Epstein. Ok, so I’m 46 years old and just within the past 8 months have taken up Crossfit with a passion. One cool thing about Crossfit is that everybody who does Crossfit is an athlete. I used to be an athlete back when I was pre-age 16 but since then haven’t been acquainted with that side of myself (unless you count the 2 years of yoga I did before Crossfit, which I don’t… exactly… though perhaps slightly). I competed at the micro regional level in swimming, track & field and field hockey back in those days. Then my family switched countries, I had to make a big adjustment to life in Canada, and I just abandoned all sports. Too bad. But you know, it’s never too late. A friend of mine is on a women’s house league called – It’s Never Too Late – love it. Anyway, starting up Crossfit you can’t help but notice that some people just do better at it than other people, even with very similar training. Some people grow muscle at three times the rate of other people. Some people pick up complex movement skills way faster than others. Some people grow an engine five times the size of others (that is Crossfit for work capacity and endurance). Some body types find particular movements easy, while other body types will struggle with the same exercise from day one onwards into infinity. This book does a beautiful job of answering a lot of the questions on my mind these past few months, though happily the whole thing is still as mysterious as before I read it. I like mysterious. How much of athletic ability is genetic, and how much is conditioned? This book has a lot of surprises and goes against the prevailing 10,000 hour theory that we hear about a lot. This theory basically says that to master something you need to put in roughly 10,000 hours of practice, which for most people, will be about 10 years of work. Heck, some people are practically born masters and some people can train their whole life and still be far off. The good news is that we can all probably become good at something. If we’ve tried the 10,000 hours and are still suck then we’re probably stuck doing the wrong thing. One the other hand, if it’s just flow we’re looking for, then we’re doing something for the sake of doing it and for the pleasure it brings us regardless of how good, or not so good, we are at it.
So there you have it. Finding flow, while engaging in sports and dealing with an autoimmune condition. That’s me, and that’s why I like these books. At this point my autoimmune condition is pretty low key and nothing like ulcerative colitis, but any autoimmune condition is going to be frustrating as heck at times. Wait, did I not say I love challenges? Ok, this one I could do without, I’ll admit it. But since that isn’t an option it’s still full steam ahead (while taking extra care to get enough sleep, take my supplements and not overtrain). I’ve been dealing with IT, the condition, for a good 20 years and I’m done with having it order me around . My new goal is a bar muscle up by the end of the year. I have a pretty good string of 10 kipping pullups in a row, so I now need to work on chest to bar pull ups to build the strength for the muscle up! Tra La Laaaaaaaa!
Over and Out and Later.