Friction & Flow
Every conversation at the moment seems to include a mention of AI.
The AI robots have trawled the entirety of the digital world with the promise that that we will no longer have to crank the gears of thinking quite as hard. As I type this, and reflect that I will be putting it onto the internet, I realise that I’m also feeding those robots as they scoop up the effort, creativity, grit and grind of humankind.
Us humans are consuming more and more “content” that is being generated and reprocessed from who knows what? I suspect we are consuming the junk food of thought. Processed. Reconstituted. Plastic.
It looks like the real thing, but the calories are empty.
Like plastic fast fashion itself a shadow of the quality clothing that we used to wear. Slow fashion was the final creative output of a process that involved the sun, nature, harvest, weaving, sewing, crafting and making something that was built to last.
It reminds me of a scene from the excellent documentary Ocean with David Attenborough where trawlers ravage large tracts of ocean for fish to feed our insatiable human hunger.
But if everything is easy, where does the value actually sit?
In the name of our yoga school “Art of Flow”, the Flow part was meant to be a pointer towards the Flow state. A place of deep attention in the present moment where time can collapse and fold upon itself due to complete absorption. Where we have a feeling of ease and rhythm.
This is the ease that we are after, not the false one that AI promises.
The ease of Flow is one that is earned through the friction of effort and the depth of work and passion.
All this to say, this is one of the reasons yoga is a practice that facilitates the feeling of flow. Yoga is a discipline containing many practices. Breathing, moving, chanting, studying, serving. The practices are designed to either create some friction or to facilitate you noticing friction. The friction of practice may present itself as a feeling of being time poor, a shallow breath, discomfort in the body, clumsiness in movement, static in your mind, a yearning for peace.
It is exactly this friction that creates the growth. It’s the constant flow of water over a stone that makes it smooth over time. The constant push and pull of the ocean waves that grind shells into soft sand, the heat of the iron that softens the creases. The sandpaper that transforms wood into carpentry. I’m sure AI could come up with more, but that’s all I’ve got.
With that, I will push this piece, aka “content” in today’s language, out onto the internet where it will become food for the ever hungrier AI machine.
I hope you’ll come feel the friction of practice with us. It’s the only way you’ll truly find your flow.
