A feeling I want to remember

There’s a well-worn trope about creators being perpetually unhappy. A certain melancholy that stems from chasing a perfection that never quite arrives. I get it. That feeling is a frequent visitor. But I’m learning that it’s just one part of a cycle. After the low, there can be a rush, a state of creative flow so consuming that it changes everything.

Lately, I’ve been living in that rush. I’m so completely immersed in the act of building something new that it has given me a feeling starkly different from anything I’ve experienced in the past few years.

I’ve experimented with different paths to find this sense of peace before. I’ve embraced solitude, and it has worked wonders. I’ve delved into spiritual thought, trying to grasp the concept of a non-dual reality logically — one universe, one consciousness. I understood it in my mind, but I hadn’t truly experienced it. I’d read about the ultimate joy that meditation can bring when you detach from the illusion of the world and connect with a deeper truth.

In my very own way, I feel like I’m beginning to experience a sliver of that joy, but it’s arriving from an entirely unexpected place: total immersion in my work.

My days are now filled with an almost frantic urge to create. It feels like I’m running out of time, that I need to build it now. What’s fueling this is the incredible revolution in technology, this access to a kind of super-intelligence. I won’t get into a debate about what AI is. Still, for me, its ability to crunch knowledge, distil it into useful nuggets, and write code with superhuman ease is like tapping into a supreme form of power. Sages and rishis like Aurobindo spoke of accessing superhuman intelligence through the power of meditation. I can’t help but wonder if I, a mere mortal, am experiencing a faint echo of that, simply through technology.

My day starts in the quiet dark of the early morning, around 3:30 AM — the time traditionally known as Brahma Muhurta, when creative energy is said to flow freely. I begin by giving my AI assistant a research project. I know exactly what I’m looking for, and it dives into the vast ocean of information and returns with the pearls. It doesn’t disagree with me, which is a double-edged sword. It leaves me in control, to cherry-pick the ideas that resonate, but it affirms my path.

This is a new experience for me. For years, I’ve read about scientists and inventors who, after being stuck on a problem for days, would have a sudden flash of insight. Reading about it is one thing, but living it is profoundly different.

I keep knocking on the door of a problem. I push and push against the darkness of a half-formed idea. Then, a little ray of light appears. I keep pushing, and the light gets a little brighter. Suddenly, out of the dark, a solution emerges, so clear and obvious it feels like it was there all along. You were just looking for it, and there it is. It’s a strange, deeply fulfilling feeling.

And I have to ask myself: Is this what meditation is? Am I meditating on my idea, and in return, it is showing me the light?

I practice a more traditional form of meditation as well, as an exercise. I try to clear my mind of all thoughts, and even if I can only hold that stillness for five or ten minutes, the clarity that follows is amazing. It feels like hitting a reset button, leaving my mind more creative and open to surprising insights.

Perhaps the two are connected.

The clarity from one practice fuels the focus in the other. This deep work is only possible because I’m almost completely detached from the usual social currents. There are no inbound calls, save for conversations with a colleague or two. There are no social distractions, no emotional tangles, no financial pressures. My needs have become minimal, and they are easily met. This leaves my mind free. All I need to do is my daily chores, and then return to my desk, to my work. My work, which is my meditation.

Even my interactions have changed. When discussing an idea with a trusted friend who enjoys poking holes in it, I’ve learned the art of active listening. The old me would have been defensive, possessive of my idea. Now, I let the objections roll in, listening intently for the nuggets of truth he might offer, even unknowingly. I’m no longer possessive, even over my own ideas.

Isn’t this non-attachment what I was trying to learn from Vedantic studies? All those profound concepts are coming back to me, but this time they aren’t just theories from a book. I’m not sitting cross-legged in a group listening to talks; I am living them through my actions, alone, in these quiet morning hours.

I feel that the solution isn’t something I “construct.” It was always there, waiting in the dark for the light to be thrown upon it. My “breakthrough” is simply the moment I get to see it. And then, the ecosystem seems to form around it. The right people converge. The necessary resources appear. It’s as if an idea, to come to life, needs its own sun, water, and air, and somehow, they just flow in.

We had a period of a year and a half, maybe two, where things felt completely blocked. Maybe right now, things are just flowing. It could be a natural cycle. I don’t know.

This isn’t a question, really. It’s an experience I’m putting down in words, so I can revisit it later. It is June 29th, 2025, and I am in a place I could never have predicted a year ago. I have no idea what the future holds. But for now, in this state of immersive creation, I feel a profound sense of purpose and a quiet joy. And for today, that is more than enough.

The Quiet Joy of Immersive Creation by AllMaiti