In order to get a better handle on 'Flow' and 'Fitted-ness' from Meaning Part 2, I began thinking of them as a spectrum and ended up with an intersection of three different spectra, an intersection that I think has the greatest explanatory power over the 'experience of meaning' than anything else I've come up with to date. Simply put: I think the closer one's mental space is to the rim of the circle, the more intensely meaningful the experience is. I also think everything on the rim could be felt, expressed or interpreted as a 'numinous experience'. However, while the numinous relationship experience, for example, I think would be somewhere on arc C (on my interior), there are clearly aspects of the experience that are interactive and closer to arc A.
A few points:
- Area A has the most 'flow' from the most physical of sporting activities.
- Area B has the most 'flow' from the most technical activities (i.e. highly skilled factory workers, I also think chess playing might be here).
- Area C has the most 'flow' from symbol expressive arts (painting, music, etc.) but I think many 'spiritual experiences' might commonly be located on the diagram here.
- Area D has the most 'flow' from interior (philosophic) analysis. (My mind hangs out here a lot.)
- 'Symbol fitted-ness' originates as expression of the interior (area C or D), an expression adequate one's own interior (area C or D) or to one's exterior (area A or B)
- The more consciously aware one is of their experience (the further into the upper diagram 'dome') the less intensely meaningful the experience. (I think; see below.)
- The center of the intersection is probably the most boring place.
- I do not think there is a 'proper' orientation of this diagram; I only placed unconsciousness on the bottom because, I happen to not be an explorer of the unconscious.
Moreover, when an experience 'becomes' unconscious it loses experiential meaning (e.g. trained reflex arc, unconscious [ideological] ignorance of opposing points of view), yet when an experience 'emerges' from unconsciousness, symbols of the experience often pinpoint the experience's originating agency as outside 'beyond' the self, such as luck, God, fate, etc. Upon rare occasions, when experiences emerge from the unconscious right at the circle's rim, the sudden intense meaning of the 'rim experience' is akin to a short circuit of consciousness, and the experience is likely at its most luminously meaningful point. Symbols of such intense 'rim experiences' are often more akin to divine revelation.
I don't think the key to (optimal life) happiness is merely the maintenance of a (perfect) balanced center point in the spectrum (I think that's boredom), but I do think (optimal life) happiness might be a matter of discovering what kind of moments are better (for any individual person) spent at which place in the spectrum, and not spending an inordinate amount of (overall or successive) time at any place within the mental space spectrum. This is what I mean when I say I think one of my life lessons is seeking my individual ('right') balance between the intense (meaningful) flow of the relationship experience and the intense (meaningful) fitted-ness of reflection.
Indeed, as I noted before, conscious awareness of our experiences can change our success by affecting our focus (Meaning Part 1), yet conscious reflective awareness might be integral to long term project happiness. Thus conscious awareness needs to be balanced so it does not detract from our active focus but achieves adequate (optimal) 'mental reflective happiness'. Fortunately, awareness (no matter its affect on focus) does not change the meaning and significance of the experience, or change the sensation of integrated human adequacy and purpose from 'playing'. We still can 'get lost' in the experience of the game after pausing to reflect on the experience, still seek to experience that meaningful sensation of 'playful' 'flow', indeed seeking the flow and rhythm of our own internal cadences may be a requisite part of what makes the experience meaningful.
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