The Quest for Flow

A little bit on the need for paying attention to mental health.

For many years I’ve been concerned with the idea of ebb and flow — more specifically the flow portion, and even more specifically how to apply it to my daily life.

I’m not sure if it’s an aspect of being neurodivergent, in terms of what others experience in their reality, but there is very little natural flow in my life, or how I perceive moving from event to event. I live in a pretty stilted reality most of the time. I have a lot going on during a typical day, and I find it very difficult to go from doing one thing to another without experiencing a low-level sense of impending dread.

My favorite versions of the definition of flow as seen in Merriam-Webster.

Does “dread” seem like an odd word to you to use in this context? I have no idea, but that’s where I land when I think about it and try to distill it down into words. Dread.

Now, unlike most common associations you might have with this word, the “dread” I experience is not a fear that something bad is going to happen. Rather, it is the waiting and knowing that I have to do this “thing” at a later time. It sits on me like a…