With the ongoing renovation, every day there are large amounts disappearing from our accounts and it is hard to not think about how much easier it would all be with a "bit of a price bump" in something I hold. Thankfully, that even though I am on 60% of my income due to being furloughed, we are spending a fair bit less in other areas as we aren't doing much extra, so it makes up most of the shortfall. But, the fantasy of "easier finances" is pervading the thoughts and I am quite sure that I am not the only one in the world.
But, as 
I know quite a lot of people who are similar to me in this regard and while they speak about being busy and trying to avoid stress, they actually relish it as they like the feeling of performing well.
Don't we all like that feeling?
I think so, but I wonder how many of us really know what conditions we require to be able to perform at our personal best. The flow state is generally brought on when skill has to stretch slightly to meet a challenge, where it has to work more on the edge and the outcome is uncertain. If the challenge is too hard it destroys motivation, if it is too easy, boredom sets in. I think that we have all experienced this ion both sides of the equation in some way, shape or form in life.
When we don't know what drives our best, it is difficult to "engineer" the conditions to suit us and instead, we begin to work on our defaults, pushed and pulled by an environment where we might feel out of place. "Know your place" is often used in a negative fashion, that talks about personal station, but I prefer to interpret it as an understanding of the environment itself. When I am "out of place" it doesn't necessarily mean I am incapable, it just means that I am "out of line", which is another expression that is used to say someone is doing wrong in respect to an authority.
While I don't like the concept of social authority that much, the environment we are operating in is always an authority that should affect the way we are behaving, if we are paying attention. "out of line" means, out of alignment, where behaviors are not suited to conditions. If my actions are misaligned with conditions, there are going to be conflicts, like gears of the wrong size and timing grinding together. There is not necessarily anything wrong with the gears themselves, they are just not suited to each other at this time.
I have thought quite a lot about how I am aligned in the world and have often thought "it is not my time", something most of us have heard in some way also. Many might even feel that they were born into the wrong time, where their preferences, skills and behaviors might be better suited for another era, another set of environmental conditions. However, since we do not have the technical capabilities to travel through time, it is probably best to do what we can with what we've got and attempt to align ourselves to perform at our best with the dictating conditions.
While we can affect and influence some of the conditions, there are often so many factors in play that are hard (or impossible) to change, that we are probably better off being the change ourselves, setting our own parameters and behaviors to suit the environment. We as humans are far more capable of changing our behaviors than probably any other animal on earth, as the ability to design our own changes is hardwired into us. We are creative through the mechanisms of our brain and are able to design and learn complex lessons that engage all parts of our body, as well as manipulate our environment to make tools and apply them in highly dynamic ways. It is quite a gift.
Though, I do think that less of us are using our powers as much as we could, as we have been lured into a process of passivity, rather than creativity. While I am not religious in any way, there is the "built in the image of god" line and the story we tell is of god being a creative force, not a passive one. I think that these stories are just that, stories, but that doesn't mean there isn't truth in some of them, just as some of the most incisive truths of life, death and our place in the world, can be discovered through the words of Shakespeare.
It is this process of creation that I find such a compelling force in life and I feel that the way much of society has engineered itself has been to remove the creative process and replace it with consumption - instead of making, we purchase. But,this purchase of an item, no matter how great it is or how much we might want it, could feel empty because we didn't do it ourselves, we didn't earn it, we didn't have to necessarily perform at our best to have it.
Performing well not only delivers a good feeling, it also brings in the desire to feel it again and based on the conditions of flow, that means having to stretch to meet a challenge. And since the practice has grown the skill, the next challenge has to be greater and therefore, the skill will grow again. I see the creativity required in necessity, a compulsory component of our evolutionary process and while most at any given time will not try, let alone find the solution to the challenge, some will.
I wonder at times how we as a species have evolved and how little influence most individuals had and how much some had over the direction. We all make an impact on the world in some way, but it is probably the most creative that guide the masses - and everyone else follows. But it doesn't matter whether we as individuals are the "game changers" or not, we can all benefit from the act of creation as it improves the way we feel about ourselves and likely, how we interact with and feel about others. It makes me think what the differences might be between how creatives and non-creatives treat others. I will have to keep an eye out.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]