Flow: or how a Coldplay concert can get you writing again — The (not so) Daily PPILL #376

When I decided to pause The Daily PPILL sometime in Summer, I was hoping to restart it gently once Fall would hit us.

It happens to be that restarting something can be almost as hard as getting it going in the first place. We have all kinds of questions in our heads. Questions like, should I change the writing? Is it good enough? Can I just wait a little more and line up a few topics?

After the extraordinary experience of last night, I have no more excuses, I am breaking the silence.

I have to.

Last night, we went to see Coldplay, and it was great. The opening act was wonderful as well. H.E.R. as an opening act? The tickets were definitely not cheap, but worth it.

Some say, that what we pay for when we go watch an artist, is to see a human being in a state of flow. In that perfect zone where they are just taken away from what they are, and they become purely what they do. That’s exactly what we saw. You could see how the whole band was enjoying the concert just as much -or even more- than the audience. No wonder they can consistently deliver outstanding and deeply moving performances. Going above and beyond what they are asked to do, every time they play, and enjoying it. I am pretty sure they get paid handsomely, but I don’t think that’s why they showed up for work on a Wednesday evening.

So for the rest of us, what’s left? Is there a way we could get everybody in a state of flow, have them deliver outstanding results AND enjoy it? And how would the world look like if this was possible? A happier world? With unparalleled progress?

Lighting Up 58,000 Souls in Harmony

There was another remarkable thing we experienced.

Chris Martin, Coldplay’s lead singer is an artful crowd commander. He is capable of getting 58.000 individuals to sing a particular tune, at whim. While Martin is especially gifted in this skill, engaging the audience, hitting a chord in their emotions, and making them participate in a collective experience, this is something that great artists have always been able to do.

But there was something more.

Before the show, the band handed out thousands of illuminating bracelets. These light up on command, in color. The spectacle included some clever ways of lighting up the stadium with these colors, but the most beautiful to me was when they would allow all lights to come up, in a random color. Each light, was one wrist, one person, one soul in the audience. And just as the artist would connect with each individual in their own way, their light would also come up in one color. I just couldn’t ignore the metaphor.

Some version of this technology is available today everywhere. Many of us wear smartwatches and we got IoT devices everywhere. Cannot wait until we start using these for expressing feelings.

Have a great Thursday!

As published on The Channelmeister.com