#outofthemoment

I had a discussion with a friend last night on what attribute or quality we would want to wake up with if we could.

At first, I thought I wanted to have better focus and live more in-the-moment. I wanted to take the feeling of playing basketball or video games, of being mentally occupied by a combination of mechanical actions and decision making, and be able to apply it to everything else which becomes painstaking in its process.

There were too many situations in my life--during work, out drinking with friends, writing, even sex--where, right in the middle of it, I will be unnaturally aware of every action I take.  At least 80% of the time, my omniscience takes me out of a moment, and fragments a perfectly good time into a series of now-deliberate actions.

When out with my friends, it’s a distortion of perspective. Like being in third person, I will be aware of my body, its movements, and every line of conversation separated out like storyboard.

For work, it’s grasping scale: at first of what needs to be done, its sub-components, then the stifling understanding of progress, and ultimately a painful fragmentation of even a task which takes an hour.

Now being self-aware is pragmatic, but what I want is to be more selectively self-aware. I want to do something as simple as working out without interrupting it thinking about working out.

What I want in my life is flow.