Flow & our Ancestors

Big flow text

This post is to provoke different ways of looking at flow. Please take it with a grain of salt. When I say it’s like this, it’s just to make you think; make you wonder. Check this page for an ever expanding Free Flow Course.

…High risks in a natural, wild environment filled with flow triggers, forced people to get into flow. It helped them to survive and to enjoy late night ceremonies around the fire.

surfing dude
Surfing goes way back and is great for flow.

Imagine waking up in a jungle, full of dangerous animals, plants and insects, everyday…You have to be focused most of the time. Our ancestors were wired for flow. From an evolutionary perspective, focus and flow are strong qualities that survived because of natural selection. It’s an important trait of a true leader. Many people can sense this power. Their willingness to take risks, fight for the tribe and their resilience emanate a peculiar aura that even people who never experienced it can feel.

Maybe there was a time when parents thought their children how to flow, in order to survive and cope with the dangers of nature. Plus, it feels great! It helps with bonding AND overcoming the chaos of nature.

…Great Flow Hackers cultivated the ability to create or find order in the chaos of life. This takes a well integrated, resilient and flexible person. A skill that can be developed, but is very hard to teach. Maybe, especially in modern day society.

People are more motivated by something biting them in their ass when they don’t succeed, than a valuable prize at the end of the finish line when they do…Why? I think partly because a lot of skills our ancestors cultivated were to avoid chaos and danger. Maybe humans started developing the ability to imagine life changing ideas AFTER they established order as a collective.

Flow as a survival mechanism.
Now arises the question; is flow a survival mechanism we developed to overcome the dangers of the natural world?

If so, how do we learn to use it without the chaos and risks of the natural environment? Can our goals and dreams be sufficient enough to access this state of optimal performance?

The short answer is yes. The longer, more accurate answer is that the safer activities and practices that help us to get into flow seem very weird. There is not much space in our modern society for ecstatic dance, shamanic drumming and intense chanting. Just to name a few. Our technologies are evolving at an incredible rate. Terms like spiritual technology and techno-shamanism were introduced after great new, mind altering technologies were made. Virtual Reality (VR) is one promising endeavor that can help us to get into different states of consciousness, including Flow. The feeling of Awe is at the forefront of Flow. VR can easily induce Awe. Therefore making it much easier to get into flow.

We left mother nature far behind. I think in order for people to experience altered states of consciousness allover the globe, we need to shape the modern world around it. This is the complete opposite of how I imagine our naked forefathers, running around, playing and hunting in a deep Flow State.

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