Personal Observations On Life

Originally published in The-O-Zine (http://www.the-o-zine.com/)
which is full of wonderful things that everyone should read and support. Check the article on Stonewall Inn in the Summer 2005 edition.

There is a certain intensity that can be achieved only through focused concentration coupled with physical or mental activity.  Done correctly, it achieves the Zen yin/yang of thinking right allowing doing right, allowing thinking right.  It can be a very fulfilling and pleasurable experience, full of confidence, joy and elation.

The constituents are certainly hormones, endorphins, intellect and experience all set in balance against each other.  I imagine there are people barely post pubescent who can achieve this state, Olympic athletes come to mind.  But to achieve this intensity at such an age requires a ruthlessly altered childhood.  A childhood that subjugates all else to achieving a particular goal.

Most people will take a bit longer to find it.  I suspect many people experience it and never recognize it for what it is or learn to control and use it.

I cannot name a date when I learned to do it, but I have clear understanding of how.  Motorcycles.  Motorcycles are frighteningly dangerous in the best of circumstances.  Ridden with measured disregard for traffic laws, they are doubly so.  If a motorcycle rider understands what all the pieces of the cycle are doing and how they are relating to the road and the rider and each other, and if said rider knows what he and the machine are capable of and what happens when the limits are reached, and what it feels like when the various circumstances that delineate those limits are close, and if said rider has the experience to anticipate said circumstances and the skill to alter them in his favour, and if said hypothetical rider chooses to ride at said limits, then that rider is very busy and very focused for as long as the ride continues in this manner.

As a practical matter, what the rider experiences is the world shrinking down.  All that exists is the way the road looks between the front wheel and the next curve, and what the instruments and the sound of the motor and the feel of the foot pegs and handlebars and seat of the pants are saying.  There is NOTHING else.  I have heard this aspect of the experience described as similar to the absorption of being deeply engaged in a truly fascinating story, but that fails as a metaphor for the whole of the phenomena, since it lacks the urgency of what I'm describing.

If our rider never feels fear, the limits are too far away.  Fear is the way this example taps into the hormonal and endorphin engines that power the concentration, and is necessary to the equation in this example.  Add enough safety to ensure the protection of the rider, and the exercise will fail.  Fortunately, fear is not the only way .  Sexual arousal, the thrill of the intellectual chase, extreme physical performance and certainly other things I haven't thought of, might serve the same function.  I suspect it may be necessary to tap a basic human drive such as self preservation or reproduction to reach the state I'm describing.

This state shouldn't be confused with the "runner's high" that often comes with extreme physical exertion.  Runners high may be a result of the concentration I'm talking about, or it may coexist with it or it may not occur at all.  It is a separate, and in my opinion smaller phenomena.

It is fortunate that once a person has learned to achieve this state of concentration when engaged in one activity, it becomes much easier to achieve it in others. I found that I was rapidly able to achieve this state during other activity.  When I learned how to attain this state in conjunction with sex, my life improved markedly.

Not all activities appear to lend themselves to this sort of intensity of concentration.  I doubt television will ever rise to the height of invoking it.

Schools and the workplace emphasize more, faster, better, and that almost always translates into multitasking.  How many people will watch or listen to entertainment while eating.  Or talk on the phone while driving or walking.  Look around and count them.  What I am talking about CANNOT be multi-tasked.  If you're thinking of something else with the smallest part of your mind, you can't do it.  Multitasking is a valuable skill and I would have a hard time if I couldn't do it.  It can get things done, but it's inherently shallow and lacking substance by comparison.

From my point of view, the best situation is having the ability to change, at will, from multitasking to concentration that can be ramped to an appropriate level as the situation requires.  It requires practice and thought to achieve this.  It's enlightening to observe how long it took me and takes others to achieve this.

But you knew all of this, right?

A.M.

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