Shaykh Hamza on Baseball and Reading 'in the Flow'

Sports is an interesting metaphor. I read a beautiful book called All Things Shining where they really use sports as a metaphor for this because one of the few things our culture really acknowledges is excellence in sports. But one of things about a great moment in sports - when a pitcher is having a perfect game in baseball, you know what happens to the team? Nobody talks to him. They completely, everybody just stays away. Because he's entered into a completely different zone. They call it 'the flow' in sports psychology. They're in the flow. And great athletes know this. And it's when everything becomes unified. They're not experiencing separateness. Everything is perfect. And that's when he pitches a perfect game. Shut-out, no-hitter. Just strike-out after strike-out. And nothing goes wrong. It's a perfect flow. This is the state of the saints, all the time. This is where they're at. This is where the awliya are at.. It's perfect flow. And that's why they don't get disruptive, they don't get disturbed, because they're aware. Now reading at the highest level is that. You're in a state of flow. That's why he's [Mortimer Adler] saying if you learn these rules, the more you work at them, you will begin to read in a state of flow where all of these things are making sense, they've coalesced and telescoped for you, but it's hard work.

-Hamza Yusuf, "How to Read a Book, Part II" (from about 1 hr, 5 mins in).