The Resilient Founder

23Prescription 3 – Feeling, Not Thinking

You are the Captain of this ship. You have no right to be vulnerable.

– Mr. Spock, Star Trek

I urge you to please notice when you are happy and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.”

– Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

A state of flow comes when we are deeply immersed in any favorite activity. Like that runner's high, we lose the space-time context. We find ourselves exhilarated, filled with a kind of refreshing joy and feeling that words can barely describe.

For some, it comes from music.

For others it's art.

Carl Jung would often pick up a hammer and a chisel, carving stone as a way to engage with his muse. In one situation, Jung writes, “The story of how this stone came to me is a curious one. I needed stones for building the enclosing wall for the garden. But when the stones were delivered, instead of a triangular stone, a square block had been sent. The mason was furious and told them to take it right back. But when I saw the stone, I said, “No, that is my stone, I must have it!” I wanted to do something with it. Only I did not yet know what.

Jung goes on to inscribe words that came to him, one after the other, in a state of flow as he chiseled away. He writes that he is an orphan, a youth, an old man – all at the same time. He is in the woods, the mountains, and the innermost soul of man. Mortal, yet untouched by cycle of eons. The words that flowed from him – on his stone, ...