We Have Forgotten How to Lose Ourselves

Becoming absorbed in an activity induces a state of "flow."

Source: William Choquette/Pexels

We have forgotten how to get lost. Technology allows us to maintain a continual, detailed awareness of our location at any given time. We live overdetermined lives in a hypercognitive world. We forget how to loosen our moorings, drift away, and spend time neither knowing nor caring about our coordinates on a map.

This is a pity. We need to get lost more in healthy ways.

I would journey to all four corners of the Earth in search of strangeness, culture shock, and lostness, but nobody has the time or money to take a long trip every time they need to let their moorings slip for a while.

Happily, there are other ways to lose ourselves much closer to home, chiefly by becoming deeply absorbed in activities that we love—so absorbed that the rest of the world vanishes from consciousness, and there is only the rhythm of our feet pounding the pavement as we run, the motion of our arms in the water as we swim, the click of knitting needles, or the “empty mind” of meditation.

This is called “flow” in Western traditions and “no self” in Buddhist philosophy. It is a deeply nourishing mental state that is highly conducive to happiness. We need more of it.

A state of “flow”

Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi points out that we are at our happiest when we are in this state of “flow,” which occurs when we are so engrossed in something that nothing else matters. We enter this mindset when we get “in the zone” doing an activity that we enjoy, that requires concentration, and at which we are skilled. If all of these elements are present, we cease to worry about anything else, we are utterly absorbed in the activity at hand, and we emerge at the end refreshed and happier than when we started out.

To help us enter this state, the level of challenge and our level of skill must be finely balanced. We need to feel some challenge, but we also need to believe that we are accomplishing something. The challenge must not be so great that our efforts seem futile, but it must not be so small that we get no reward, or the activity does not seem worthwhile.

If everything clicks into place, we become so deeply absorbed in the activity that the rest of the world simply falls away, and if everything goes well, our very sense of self can vanish. We exist only insofar as we are performing the task at hand. Nothing else registers.

Building flow into our lives can help us to find purpose and enjoyment in what we do, keep on learning, and better manage the challenges that life sends our way. By focusing on the activities that bring us into a state of flow, we achieve greater absorption in the moment, deeper engagement with our activities, and higher levels of satisfaction and happiness in our lives.

“No self” in Buddhism

This state of flow is described in many cultures, perhaps most notably in Buddhism, which speaks of “no self.” This teaching does not mean that there is literally no self—clearly, my “self” got up this morning, drank a cup of tea, and is typing on this computer.

“No self” means that the idea of “self” feels more concrete and unchanging to us than it really is. Our “selves” are constantly changing and only exist in the first place because of a fortunate coincidence of external circumstances and conditions, all of which could shift at any moment: we are excessively attached to the idea of “self,” which is not as permanent or unchanging as we commonly imagine. And thank goodness for that.

Entering a state of flow is one of the best ways to see “no self” in action. When I am utterly immersed in work on my laptop computer, I forget all kinds of important things: what time it is, whether or not I have fed the cat, when I need to leave for work, and what about that cup of tea I made half an hour ago, which now sits cold and untouched by the side of my keyboard?

Activity, “flow,” and getting lost

For some people, sport helps them to reach this state of flow or “no self”: running, swimming, walking, or exercising in a gym. For others, activities like meditation, yoga, or even knitting can get them into the groove and let their troubles, worries, and personal identities melt away, if only for a few hours.

This is possibly the most nourishing form of lostness: getting lost from ourselves in a healthy way. In general, we tend to overcontrol our lives. We struggle to let ourselves be lost. We hang on to the illusory certainties of everyday life. We fail to drift off as much as we should.

Sometimes, this is because we simply do not have the time to spend being lost, going running, sitting and meditating, or traveling to far-off places. But failing to get lost comes at a considerable cost to our inner lives and happiness. We need to let go more, be it in the gym, at the yoga studio, or even here at my laptop.

Flow Essential Reads

In the Zone: How the Brain Helps Us Flow

If You Want the Flow You Have to Let It Go

Getting lost is vital, if only so that we can be found again and return to our lives refreshed, with new ideas, new experiences, and new ways of seeing our worlds.