We have entered a period in the American experiment that might best be characterized as the era of whiplash. We are being yanked to and fro by our president in a manner that is disorienting and disturbing all while we are being asked to ignore norms and laws including many provisions of our Constitution. This is not creative destruction, which is a healthy organic response to changing realities. This is not reform that revitalizes our institutions. Virtue-free blundering is not a strategy, it is destruction for the sake of destruction guided by ego, vengeance, and greed. This is not conservatism; it is nihilism saturated with corruption.

Thus far, our economy and state and local social and political structures have shown the strength of resilience. However, it is just a matter of time before they will be affected by chaos-induced risk descending from above. The violent spring storms of 2025 may be seeded by buckets of gnawed KFC chicken bones raining down from Air Force One. Congress will not restrain the executive branch, they are, regrettably, the president’s handmaid. And it is far from certain the judicial branch will be the bulwark it is supposed to be. Trump believes his Sharpie pen is the law and the Supreme Court, which granted presidents blanket immunity for official acts in 2024, may agree—either by its further rulings or by its silence.

While we are largely powerless to curb the manic dysfunction emanating from the Oval Office until the next election, our central responsibility remains: to care for ourselves and our communities—the “you and yours” of my last post. We need to be America’s anchored ballast to retain the character of the greatest nation in the modern era. We need to respond with quiet resolve rather than frantic hysteria. Matching the derangement of the beast will only empower it; it thrives on the lumens of attention. Individually, we need to move from GO! to flow.

Have you ever worked hard—really hard—to get somewhere and upon arrival realized that you had gone nowhere, or at least nowhere new? Nowhere never becomes somewhere unless it has what you’re aiming for. We live in a society where tremendous amounts of energy are used to go nowhere, but we always get there fast! The boorish among us even believe destroying everything in their path without regard to those harmed is a requisite of success. Psychiatrists call them sociopaths. Today, we call him president.

Upon arrival at nowhere, the emptiness in the outcome is then usually ignored in favor of racing somewhere else. Chase, chase, chase. Surely, a new destination will turn nowhere into somewhere. We hope the grass will be greener over the next hill, or after the next deal, or in the next new relationship. Many of us are careening meteors destined for catastrophic collisions in the empty space of nowhere. If we are lucky, we don’t harm anything or anyone else. We simply fall apart in the silence of darkness and, if we survive the humiliation of devastation, are reborn as a new tangle of energetic promise.

Such is the condition of Americans today: a bundle of calcifying frayed nerves moving through space and time with reckless abandon. Calcification is meant to dull the exigent pain as our bodies cry out for wisdom, yet what it actually accomplishes is a systemic pathology that compromises our health and welfare. Growth for the sake of growth—go to GO!—is the ideology of cancer cells. At times, it feels as if we are all in a perpetual game of musical chairs. We live in a world infested with accelerants; the underlying premise of technological innovation is speed; cheaper speed is even better. Get it NOW, know it NOW, get thin NOW, find love NOW. Go, go, GO! Waiting is un-American and stress inducing; instant gratification is a patriotic entitlement. Speed is good, until it isn’t.

The spiritual teacher Michael Singer is known to emphatically assert that “we have programmed ourselves to be miserable.” Not exactly encouraging except that the core of his claim, “we have programmed,” suggests we can also program ourselves otherwise—to be happy, content and fulfilled. Switching programming modalities depends a great deal on content management and decision-making acuity to achieve a calm sense of clarity that supports progress, stability, and tranquility. In other words, being miserable is largely a choice, but so is contentment.

If we are fortunate enough to listen to our lives with a measure of awareness we learn (often the hard way) that the answer to fulfillment is not elsewhere; rather, it is where it always has been: within us. Contentment—riding a wave of bliss—is found at home; the metaphysical home. This realization brings us to the next reality: home is where you are, wherever you may be. And here is the cherry on top: you are fine just the way you are. You are enough.

Give yourself a break. Get off of your own back. Less GO! and more flow.

In physics, flow generally has two dimensional characteristics besides speed and volume: amplitude and frequency. How high and low are the peaks and valleys (amplitude) and how often are those limits reached (frequency). Oscillation speaks to the repetitive nature of the flow that includes amplitude and frequency. High amplitude, high frequency, and disturbed oscillation combined with high speed and volume create noise, stress, and disease in humans. Collectively, the GO! Converting the GO! to healthy flow is akin to calming the waters of a river from a torrent of turbidity to a glass-smooth state of flow where movement is certain but produces no wake. Progress without collateral disturbance.

In his seminal book, Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi examines how we manage our inner harmony to affect order in our consciousness as we encounter the world. “Control over psychic energy” is central to achieving a state of flow. This control requires both self-awareness and self-discipline. Ego and soul must find a happy equilibrium that neither distorts the world nor makes unrealistic demands on its host—you. Where all sources of disturbance are sequestered in suspended animation. This balance and control then allow energy to flow without physical or psychological disturbance creating a highly effective and efficient state of being.

As humans, who we are, what we are, and why we are is characterized by a constant state of renewal. Impermanence is permanent. We must, therefore, take care of our whole selves, the physical, mental, and spiritual. The benefits of flow are central to this standard of care and can be realized by attending to these functions: how we breathe, eat, move, speak, listen, and think.

GO! breathing is shallow and fast. Flow breathing is deep and slow. In James Nestor’s studies of breathing summarized in his book, Breath: the New Science of a Lost Art, he illustrates the benefits of attentive and intentional breath work. He argues that “No matter what we eat, how much we exercise, how resilient our genes are, how skinny or young or wise we are—none of it will matter unless we are breathing correctly.” In his many experiments and studies Nestor has found that “breathing allows us to hack into our own nervous system, control our immune response, and restore our health.” He offers many methods to bring the benefits of proper breathing into our lives, but simply put, use your nose not your mouth, and inhale for a count of five and exhale for another count of five. Our breath is the most influential tool we control to affect our well-being.

GO! eating is gobbling and gorging. Fast and big. Flow eating savors. GO! eating puts an extraordinary burden on our digestive system and metabolism to tame the assault. The slow food movement that began in 1986 in Italy is a new genre of nutritional discipleship. Its mission is to ensure “everyone has access to good, clean and fair food,” which is clearly in the interest of all humanity. But what we control more directly is how we consume our food. In Lee Holden’s book, Ready, Set, Slow: How to Improve Your Energy, Health, and Relationships Through the Power of Slow, he advocates for “32 chews per mouthful of food.” Honor the food by savoring it and it will honor your body. As Holden claims, “your digestive system will thank you for it.” Yes, eating slowly can be annoying to others who live in a perpetual state of hurry, but if they are slowed by your eating discipline they will benefit as well.

GO! movement is frenetic and chaotic. Flow movement is governed by intention and efficiency. We need look no further than our young children to assess the consequences of GO! movement. Often toddlers will become whirling dervishes of uncontrolled tantrum-energy just before they hit the wall and crash followed by a rejuvenating nap. With adults the consequences can be more severe—a nap may not repair the damage. The antithesis of whirling and spiraling are practices like Tai Chi and Qi Gong that reflect the wisdom of Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching where he wrote, “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” They combine flow-supporting breathing techniques and physical movement in the manner of meditation. Fast frenetic movement, while necessary at times (like averting physical threats) often wastes energy and conveys a sense of disturbed aggression completely inconsistent with flow. My mother’s favorite admonition of her children was “Slow WAY down.” She was hardly a Tai Chi master, but the message was the same.

GO! speaking is what anxious or malicious people do who confuse speed with persuasion, or simply wish to deceive. Flow speech offers a coherent cadence. Speech coaches often advise to speak no more than forty words per minute which is the speed at which humans can apply what’s said to their own particular mental maps. Faster speech means fewer words understood by an audience opening up the probability of both confusion and lower levels of understanding, or persuasion. And then there is the issue of volume/quantity. Loud and overwhelming (flood the zone) or quiet and succinct. The political fashion today is to flood the zone, which is intended to disorient people to avoid critical consumption of what is being said. It is the modality of manipulators. The authentic actor chooses words carefully and delivers them with the intent of increasing understanding.

GO! listening is hearing but not listening. Flow listening is founded in respect. Early in my business career I learned that the greatest compliment you can pay someone is to listen to them. The great interviewer, Larry King, once told me the key to interviewing is NOT thinking about what you are going to say while the other person is speaking. A pregnant pause before you respond conveys evidence to the speaker that they have been seen and heard; they have been understood. If your mouth moves faster than your brain, you can really get yourself in trouble. If your brain moves faster than your mouth you will be fine, as long as you employ that pregnant pause, which allows thoughts to find coherence and resonance before departing your mouth.

GO! thinking is linear, one-directional, and often makes the error of putting yourself, or humans more generally, as the focus of everything. The most obvious example of GO! thinking today is righteous certitude (RC). Traditionally, RC was prevalent in organized religion, but today is expressed the loudest in the political sphere by members of both political parties. RC creates the win/lose zero-sum mentality that limits the possibility of expanding awareness, knowledge, and welfare. Although righteousness can feel good in the moment, it proves toxic when applied to public policy because of its unique blend of ignorance and arrogance—what I call ignacity. RC must be called out and allowed to whither in the sunlight of truth and moral virtue.

The goal of flow thinking is the application of whole-mindedness that considers all perspectives and honors all of our natural senses. Unfortunately, our thinking too often is egocentric, which inspired the paleoanthropologist, Donald Johansson, to suggest that we should be called Homo Egocentricus rather than Homo Sapiens. The best argument I have seen recently about how to correct our thinking from GO! to flow is in Dan Barker’s book, Contraduction, that describes this problem of our propensity to assert linear, forward-only, human-centric claims that result in false conclusions and compromises decision making. Contraduction occurs when we flip cause and effect to produce fallacies. Simple examples are like the common claim that the sun rises, when in reality this effect is produced by the earth turning; or, when we hear that happy people are healthy people when the more likely reality is that it is our good health that makes us happy, not the other way around. What Barker is asking us to do is to look through both ends of the telescope in all directions to examine each situation with better clarity before deciding and acting.

GO! is dangerous, perhaps even ruinous. Achieving that calm sense of clarity that supports progress, stability, and tranquility is nurtured in a state of flow. To invoke Mahatma Gandhi’s (highly paraphrased) words, “be the change you want to see in the world,” perhaps we should alter them to: be the change calm you want to see in the world. At the very least, it will enhance our health and general welfare, and it might even provide enough time for the reality of impermanence to be visited upon those who are deploying cruel chaos to squander the greatness of America today.