FLOW IN ACTION: Scroll through any social media site long enough and you're bound to come across an article, a quote, a meme, or a short film about flow. It's a catchy word that is a bit of a sticky wicket to define, unless you have experienced it yourself while painting a painting, writing a story, dancing to a favorite tune, or just communing with friends or nature. For flow is something not seen, only experienced, and only after experience may a person know what all of the fuss is about (fuss that is well-founded).
FISH AS PHILOSOPHY: But there is a way to witness what the concept of flow sort of kind of maybe feels like, a bit, inside your head and heart, and that's by watching a very large school of fish move together in beautiful unison. Spying the fish work as seemingly one body is reminiscent of how disparate ideas move within the mind during a period of artistic flow. If you want to see this in action you can, on the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Open Sea Cam or in-person at the actual Open Sea exhibit at the Cannery Row-based institution. And here's some fun news: The below-surface flow has grown among the Pacific sardines, fishes that are masters of flow, in all ways.
3,000 PACIFIC SARDINES... have been introduced into the Open Sea Exhibit, which means there are over 12,000 Pacific sardines in the wondrous ocean-rich water (water that can be viewed through a massive 90-foot window). These sardines swim in "huge, glittering schools," says the aquarium's web site, which all leads up to we landlubbers gazing upon them in wonder, yes, but also deeper understanding. Deeper understanding of what it means to be a sardine -- surely you've pondered such important questions before, yes? -- and how the flow we seek in our creative and/or athletic pursuits is pretty much made real when thousands of shiny fish seamlessly dart and turn and move as one.
