The Quality Called “Life”

Nothing excites me like writing essays. It may sound like an exaggeration, but I spend every waking second thinking and (mentally) writing – trying to write most of the time, anyway. I have a penchant for getting at the core of anything that has the capacity to stimulate me intellectually. I wish I could spend more time writing these essays, or perhaps a better way to put it is: I wish I could write essays more often. But something that has struck me recently is that the process cannot be rushed or simulated. No matter how hard I try to push myself, I have to trust the process.

I remember the last essay I wrote and published. If you haven’t read it, it’s about my idea of truth-seeking. The truth is, I didn’t know what that essay meant in a broad sense, which was one of the primary reasons I wrote it at that time. (It’s funny that I mostly write to understand and dissect ideas that are otherwise difficult to grasp only by thinking.) When I go back to read that essay, it reminds me of how much my struggle for meaning has characterized my adult years, and thinking about it now, struggling harder only seems to exacerbate my suffering.

But what is man without suffering or purpose? Can man have identity without it being tied to purpose? Well, that’s something philosophers have been pondering and continue to do so. But philosophy is hardly my forte. I’m only a simple man who has an unquenchable curiosity and an incessant interest in getting the best out of life. That truth-seeking essay was largely about trying to understand the world and perhaps man’s role in it.

I’ve been meaning to write this essay since last year. I’ve written countless drafts, and because nothing exposes your mental ineptitude like writing, I’d write several paragraphs only to realize everything I’d written was jargon. I kept at it regardless, sometimes not writing anything at all – just staring at my laptop, and when no words came forth, I’d skedaddle to read something I found engaging, hoping I could draw some inspiration there.

2024 marked a turning point in my life. For the first time in a long time, I raised my head above sea level from the depression that had consistently tried to drown me for years. It was the kind of super awakening that forced me to lock in. And lock in, I did. I became obsessed with reaching my full potential. I scoured the internet and read self-help articles, but they never gave me any insight. Still, I never missed an opportunity to gain some insight or knowledge. I remained curious about how to attain the ultimate self.

I spend quite some time on Twitter. Yes, not the most productive use of time. However, Twitter can be really resourceful for learning, especially stuff that’s not exactly mainstream. Now, let me say this: I knew I was looking for new ways of thinking and new perspectives, but I didn’t know precisely what I was looking for. It was during one of those scrolling moments that I came across a tweet highlighting the importance of operating on a high vibrational level.

I’m not the most spiritual guy. I don’t even consider myself a spiritual guy. In fact, the most spirituality I’ve partaken in is me screaming “Jesus.” So, you must believe me when I tell you that this shit feels spiritual. Vibrations are the language of the universe, and it’s only natural that you speak it and speak it fluently. The universe responds to your vibrational level. You can even almost run an experiment with people. Try smiling at some people while you frown at others. I’m not saying it’s a 100% guarantee, but people are likely to mirror your energy.

Yes. Energy. In a sense, vibrations are a form of energy – emotional energy, specifically in the human sense. Science tells us that energy is discrete (it exists in specific, quantized amounts and isn’t just continuous), which means you can have higher level and lower level energy. Human emotions seem to work that way too – there’s an emotional guidance scale (devised by Abraham Hicks) that ranks emotions from a lower to higher level. I think acknowledging and being aware of your vibrational level will significantly reshape how you process your emotions and how you see the world.

Look, being high-vibrational is integral to your level of productivity. I really need you to understand this at an exceptionally fundamental level. The science checks out too. You’re likely to take on the world when you’re brimming with positive energy. Replace that with low-vibrational energy – say apathy or grief – and that propensity to take on the world diminishes to zero. It’s basically “the higher your energy, the more your willingness to do stuff.”

I’m a big admirer of top performers, regardless of the industry they’re in or their career paths. There’s a certain level of commitment and discipline that top performers have that sets them apart. Being tapped into that kind of frequency, it’s almost like you’re insulated from all forms of distraction. Wait. There’s a phrase for that. It’s what we know as “the flow state” – performing at a peak level where you lose your sense of self, time ceases to exist, and you’re fully devoted to an activity or project that perfectly matches your skill level. It’s a magical experience.

Being in flow state is vibrating at the optimal level. It’s like going into a kind of zen mode where you become a god. Every top performer you know has the uncanny ability to enter into this state. It’s why we’re so obsessed with sports people, artists, and any other stellar performers in their respective fields. It’s mastery of one’s self that helps unlock your potential in ways you couldn’t have otherwise dreamed of.

You can attain that mastery. I’m not saying it is easy to do so, but with enough dedication, it is completely doable. That’s why it’s imperative to have a clear understanding of your vibrational level so you can be attentive to your present emotional state. But beyond being attuned to your emotions, you need to work on something that you’re irrationally passionate about. That’s a requisite for getting into flow state. It has to be an activity that feels like breathing to you – like how I can be seated in the club while vehemently punching my phone screen.

You need to pay a lot of attention to yourself. You need to know what moves you. You need to spend your time working on (and generally doing) things that make you feel alive. I’m talking about doing stuff that makes you feel alive regardless of the reward or the outcome. The reward and outcome is in doing said activity for you. You can literally be engaged in the activity nonstop for several hours, and instead of getting tired or drained, you are more energized by that activity. You become so intensely focused that nothing else exists.

I’m saying, to attain that mastery – that ability to enter flow state – you need to structure your life around activities and relationships that generate that flow state. You must design your life in such a way that you’re almost always bubbling with a kind of vitality that can power an entire city.

Let’s talk about designing your life for a minute or two. How do you design your life to consistently achieve this flow state? How do you even know if you’re actually designing your life the right way? I guess it would help to know what it means for us to consider a design successful.

A design is considered a success when the “form fits the context.” Think of the form as the design (solution) and context as the user’s needs, purpose of the design, and several other factors that determine and influence how the design is perceived and used. You can apply this definition of good design to practically anything: buildings, cities, clothes, relationships – you name it.

This implies that anytime we create a design, what we’re doing is looking for something that “fits.” A good example is: a shoe is well-designed if it fits the feet perfectly as well as satisfies the purpose it was created for – whether running, playing tennis, or simply for indoor use. The form must fit the context.

When we describe a successful design in the form-context fit, it gives us an idea of how to build and “design” the form: the form is in the context. This is because the context has more information than you can process; it’s smarter than you. You need to work alongside the context to create a great design. You need a process that allows you to extract information from the context and apply it to the form. You see, this process is what we know as “unfolding.”

Unfolding is a design process that was introduced by famous architect and design theorist Christopher Alexander. Unfolding is a feedback loop between you and the context. So, as you design the form, you pay attention to the context and how well the form fits the context – you create a feedback loop that applies the context’s knowledge to your design. What does this look like realistically?

It’s basically like I mentioned earlier. You pay attention to activities and relationships that energize you and devise more ways to hone in on those activities and relationships. You spend less time on what doesn’t serve you and tries to deter your flow. Sounds simple, right? So, why aren’t we all doing this? Perhaps it’s not that simple.

What we humans often do is the opposite of unfolding. We don’t observe the context of our lives – our true passions and purpose. We visualize what we think our lives should look like. We say “I want to work at this company doing this job” without carefully looking at the context. With unfolding, you don’t simply sit and visualize an imaginary future. You look at your context and take action based on that: every action you take based on your context produces new information on your next move, and you keep iterating in that direction.

Another reason unfolding seems elusive is that we miss vital information from our context because we think in abstractions. What I’m trying to say is, you might think of your career only as work, but it’s much more than that. Your career entails your income, status, identity, purpose, and more. Instead of simply getting a job because “work,” it’s usually better to consider which of these holds more meaning for you. Does the job fit the status you seek? Does it align with your sense of purpose? You need to think about what matters to you individually and not just bundle everything up – you need to carefully observe the context and the information it’s providing.

The unfolding process prioritizes taking information from the context and using that knowledge to build your design. It discourages visualizing some imaginary future and proposed solutions to problems. This design process creates an environment that makes you come alive in such unique ways.

That feeling of aliveness – it’s the hallmark of the flow state. That feeling where it’s like you’re riding on dragon back on air thermals. It’s where the impossible becomes possible.

Christopher Alexander, being an architect and all, came up with different design theories to solve design problems. The major takeaway here is that Alexander’s primary aim for solving design problems was to create environments that feel alive and supportive of human life. It revolutionized how we solved design problems across industries in the world.

I think this quality of “life” is essential to the universe. From where I stand, it seems the possibilities are endless if we can somehow explore this quality. I’m a firm believer of the universe being the ultimate designer. I think the universe is constantly exploring ways it can express and experience itself and the proof lies in evolution. It’s the quintessential example of unfolding.

Evolution is often viewed solely from the lens of “reproduction and survival” – adapting to an environment by developing traits that increase chances of survival and reproduction – but one could argue that evolution is much more than that. Now, I’m not arguing from a scientific standpoint but I think evolution is one of the ways that the universe is iterating towards more aliveness: it is the unfolding of simple cells to organisms with entire systems to consciousness. There’s no “imaginary or futuristic” design for what things should look like – evolution extracts information from context and designs accordingly.

It’s no surprise that this unfolding pattern abounds in the universe. If the universe is truly experiencing and expressing itself through everything, including us, then we need to allow it without resisting. We need to allow the universe experience aliveness through us.