One Simple Path To Personal Freedom In This Pandemic
By: Jaivir Hans
Tags: Creativity, Freedom, Happiness, Personal Development, Growth Hacking

Current State Of The World

We read, watch, and hear about such enormous, seismic events from times gone by — the Spanish flu, the Black Death, and the Great Depression, to name a few.

And while knowledge of such craters in the human story stimulates the mind and makes great dinner-party conversation, we nearly never think of the possibility of something remotely resembling any of these calamities occurring in our own lifetimes.

It’s human to think that these earth-shifting landmarks in history happen, or happened, to other people, and that they will never happen to us — like death denial. Yet, as the history unfolding over the last 8 months has explicitly (and invisibly — thank you, Covid) proved — that’s far from the observable truth.

Economies are being hammered, companies are shuttering for the long haul, social unrest and unemployment resulting from the pandemic has begun to emerge, shortages of all kinds are in swift motion, supply chains are in the dark, the psychological, emotional and spiritual well-being of a large portion of people on all continents is on unsettling ground, and every news outlet is fighting — tooth-and-claw — for viewership by winning the battle of imbuing the populace with fear so palpable, so potent, and so permanent, it’ll make Kong from King Kong scurry back deep into his cave.

As much as I recoil while writing the above, I have to note it down to frame the context, and to make a related point — we’re only at the beginning.

The fact, ladies and gentlemen of all generations currently living, is that we have no bleeping clue of what the near or distant future will bring forth.

Yes, we can take certain financial steps to secure our future and that of our family’s, secure government funding to save our humming economic engines from the brink of irreversible collapse, hope for the new, 95% effective, pocket-friendly vaccines to hit the market soon, become personally austere and collectively minimalist in our approach toward all facets of life henceforth, and point fingers at China, or the United States, or any other conspiracy theory we’ve ever so convincingly subscribed to.

But none of us, as is now carved in our history pages, can definitively predetermine the happenings next month, the next quarter, or the next year.

We can fashion projections and make calculated scientific predictions with reasonable conviction, but we cannot write anything in stone, because it may be supplanted almost entirely, and immediately, by a virus, or a villain of a type we haven’t yet encountered en masse. Climate catastrophe, anyone?

Personal Triumph

And so, for the sake of our individual sanity, and for posterity, I’m going to ask you to perform a deep-dive, looking inward. I’m going to ask you to introspect, to look inside yourself, and to answer the following question.

“What is the one activity I passionately love doing, that allows me to boundlessly express the deepest parts of who I am, in such a way that I forget about the passage of time while engaged in it, and where I walk out the other side feeling thoroughly enlivened, energetic, useful, creative, inspired, and whole?”

This “activity”, for lack of a better word, may be writing, painting, dancing, playing an instrument, acting, graphic designing, singing, being an acrobat, running, hiking, gardening, cooking, philanthropy, counselling, consulting, directing movies, collecting baseball cards, being a spiritual healer, bartending, poetry, or just about any other creative outlet of explosive human expression that you feel you were born to do, or be.

This has no correlation, conceptual or literal, to money. I am not referring to building a business, or any other enterprise linked to this activity.

This has nothing to do with depending on an outcome, shooting for a predestined, clerical goal, or racing towards a finished product as a result of any creative endeavour.

I am merely, and solely, referring to an activity that causes you to lose track and touch of the world around you while you’re in the zone of fire, i.e., when you’re smack dab in the middle of singing a song you love, or planting your best vegetables in your backyard, or dancing aimlessly to your favourite tune, or painting vibrant colours on a blank canvas, or you’re halfway through playing the only melody you know how to play on the acoustic guitar, and you realize how full-to-the-top, robust, connected, ecstatic and liberated you feel.

This is referred to, in psychology and performance academia, as flow.

When we slip into a state of flow, irrespective of what we’re doing, time and space eludes us. We’re totally oblivious to our immediate surroundings and are wholly engrossed in masterfully performing the act at hand.

Think of an actor knee-deep in wearing the persona of the character she’s playing. She’s so immersed in the experience of playing the part that she forgets who she is outside of “action” and “cut”.

Or think of a passionate bartender stringing together the most exquisitely delicious cocktails behind the counter. He’s absorbed in the magic to the point of oneness, where he and the glasses he swirls or he and the liquids he pours become one entity. They are the same person — indistinguishable.

Or think of the hidden poet who’s midway through a poem she started crafting at 12 p.m., only to look up at the clock and be stunned by the fact that five hours have slipped by, whereas she thought she was just two hours into her dream world of rhymes and prose.

It is visceral.

It is downright cathartic.

When we exit this period of bliss, our mind creates the illusion of time having flown by quicker than it really ticked by. The psyche feels soaked in abundant joy, glowing delight, and meaningful purpose.

Everyone has experienced this at some point in their life, in some form, whether they’re aware of it or not.

And so, it is this feeling of connectedness, this sense of reverie, and this therapeutic and unencumbered state of flow that I wish for each of us to return to, consistently, persistently, this entire godforsaken plague.

Pick your favourite activity — the one you’ve either already been doing from time to time every other week, or the one you’ve shoved under the rug all these years because of work commitments or commitments stealing you of time to do them. Now is our chance!

Are you a painter? Drown yourself in paint.

Are you a bedroom DJ? Throw down a few good mixes.

Are you a karaoke fan? Collect a few friends on Zoom and scream, shout, and let it all out.

Do you dream of your perfect garden? Get your hands dirty.

Do you love feeding people? Master your favourite recipes and feed everyone at home. Send some my way, you benevolent soul.

Is dancing your jam? Blast the speakers, hang the “do not disturb” sign outside your bedroom and let loose.

Do these every single day while we’re all imprisoned. Start with a system and a disciplined time that you will stick to, no matter what.

Start small.

It’s important to remember that we’re not doing this to necessarily get outwardly proficient at it, but more so as a fun and intrinsic release of high-pressured energy and emotion that’s insidiously building up inside all of us at this time — like a pressure cooker on the verge of blowing the lid.

We’re all wondering what the governments of the world will do tomorrow, what our work and travel plans will look like, and what measures and policies will take hold in the following days. Watching the headlines every day is grim and despairing — so much is suddenly out of our command and control.

We need a personal escape, a private moment, a peaceful slot of time where we can enter the unknown by way of creating art and feeding a dormant and latent passion bubbling inside each of us. We need to walk (read: run) into that state of flow frequently — it is the silver lining to this dark cloud.

We must use this time, for time flows in one direction only.

Doing so daily, or at least every other day, will not just bring us immense pleasure and a sense of achievement, it will also keep us light on our toes and in a holistically uplifted mood.

It will minimize regret because we’re actually pursuing a passion we sidelined when our “work” life began or when university ended, and it could also inspire everyone at home (or our friends) to do the same, creating collective harmony, raised frequencies and communal contribution.

In this way, by devotedly returning to our passion with complete gusto and enthusiasm, we can experience limitless, unbridled freedom every time we sing, or dance, or write, or strum the guitar.

And this aura of freedom we create for ourselves, around ourselves, will inevitably spill over into other aspects of our lives, and into the lives of others around us. This is what we need as a species. This is what we need as a species, right now.