Precis for a Metaphysics of Flow

Rev. Douglas Olds

October 31, 2024

Research into so-called "flow states" seeks a key to its golden gate to increase intellectual, commercial, and athletic performance witnessed by those who tell of "experiences where:

• Time dissolves

• Your self-consciousness melts away

• You're completely absorbed in what you're doing — performing at your absolute best" 

(https://x.com/DrJohnVervaeke/status/1851959043884995068)

Positive psychologist Mihaly Robert Csikszentmihalyi led the way to describe Flow as “a highly focused mental state conducive to productivity” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi emph added). In this description, the existential human and its peak states are ever grounded in noesis--epistemology and hedonic productivity measured in formal terms resulting from cause and effect and therefore putatively subject to strategic evaluation.

However, as I've explicated elsewhere, the human essence is the telic transformation of human nature where cogitation serves egological needs. This transformation is begun in the ear (by hearing wisdom), moves to the heart--meaning intentionality--then the expressive and kinesthetic soul, then to effort that actualizes the transformed intentionality. This is the metaphysical sequence of the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9). Only when this metaphysics is initiated to become integrated into the human person does Jesus add "dianoia" (problem-solving insight) in Matthew 22:37 to the completing wholeness of human essence.

From this metaphysics it follows that flow isn’t just a psychological state of inner exhilaration or time displacement of ego but includes these toward an ethical mode of mindfulness of others that is harmonious, grace-aligning, and generous (see the discussion of grace's flow by aligning virtues that pacify in Olds 2023). The ethical center of flow is inherently social and flourishing in intent, thus spiritually aligned with proxies of divine accompaniment. In my experience, FLOW has a pronounced ethical center in good will (conation [ibid.]) that neutralizes anxieties that gum up our performance. It is in ethical closeness with divine accompaniment (ousia) that promotes deontological, Golden Rule virtues centered on relational wholeness, healing, and cosmic repair rather than retributive or grudge holding or threat scoping that divert us from ego. This ousia--this seeking of union with Christ the Shema's perfection--encounters every aspect of creation as FLOW of good will, an aligned flowing from and with grace and human attendance to divine companionship that imposes no transactional tension onto the divine, nor expectation of reciprocity as reward, nor seeing others as intrinsically flawed with a limited horizon. Flow maximizes returns to the neighbor-- the other--absent egological stratagems and expectations, allow the cosmic metaphysical structure to redeem the moment for eternity.

Flow thus is an experience and manifestation of a person who is moving from nature (and its acquisitiveness) to the human essence that bridges divine grace with the generationally-renewing earth essence. Flow is thus developmental and not an isolated state. Flow is Trinitarian, both metaphysically revealing and metaphysically operating to spread providential blessings that liberate and vivify and bless where deprivation and hegemony are found to deaden FLOW. Flow displaces the biological appetites for personal security, comfort, and recognition to the Trinitarian plane of attending grace, accountability to God and neighbor, and the integration of all virtues into ramifying wholeness that unifies, creatively.