For me, at least, “easily” is not the right word … it doesn’t really capture what the feeling is like.
Much more apt is Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow. (“While flowingly shifting and steering” sounds horrible, but it captures it.) Fertile ground for flow is when the highly challenging is met with the highly skillful. It then sort of commences and sustains itself on its own, without demanding any conscious intervention - although you may choose to observe yourself in a flow state, which may cause broad grinning.
I remember driving a stick in San Francisco during rush hour. Bumper to bumper traffic. The hills sloped a lot more than I had anticipated, upping the challenge, since a lapse on my part could have meant stalling out, or even worse, rolling back into the car behind me. I had to make a lot of use of the parking brake trick, i.e. engage when stopped, not releasing until the clutch hit the sweet spot - like, every few seconds. Probably in excess of 100 instances total, maybe more! I have no idea, I wasn’t counting, because the old ‘99 Honda Civic Si and I had become a single organism, fused together as one, all parts acting in concert, with full awareness and a singular focus. I was even carrying on a conversation with a person who was totally unaware! (Never caught the appeal of a stick shift.) If she had expressed that something was different about me in that moment, it wouldn’t have been that I seemed preoccupied or distracted - not at all, because I was feeling sharper, more animated, more present, and not daydreaming or speaking in showerthoughts as usual! I was alive as fuck, and it was thrilling.
I used to drive a taxi and play ukelele for carloads of drunks at the same time, but since it was an automatic Crown Vic, it always remained two distinguishable activities that had to be coordinated, so it was just a pain in the ass.
Much more apt is Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow. (“While flowingly shifting and steering” sounds horrible, but it captures it.) Fertile ground for flow is when the highly challenging is met with the highly skillful. It then sort of commences and sustains itself on its own, without demanding any conscious intervention - although you may choose to observe yourself in a flow state, which may cause broad grinning.
I remember driving a stick in San Francisco during rush hour. Bumper to bumper traffic. The hills sloped a lot more than I had anticipated, upping the challenge, since a lapse on my part could have meant stalling out, or even worse, rolling back into the car behind me. I had to make a lot of use of the parking brake trick, i.e. engage when stopped, not releasing until the clutch hit the sweet spot - like, every few seconds. Probably in excess of 100 instances total, maybe more! I have no idea, I wasn’t counting, because the old ‘99 Honda Civic Si and I had become a single organism, fused together as one, all parts acting in concert, with full awareness and a singular focus. I was even carrying on a conversation with a person who was totally unaware! (Never caught the appeal of a stick shift.) If she had expressed that something was different about me in that moment, it wouldn’t have been that I seemed preoccupied or distracted - not at all, because I was feeling sharper, more animated, more present, and not daydreaming or speaking in showerthoughts as usual! I was alive as fuck, and it was thrilling.
I used to drive a taxi and play ukelele for carloads of drunks at the same time, but since it was an automatic Crown Vic, it always remained two distinguishable activities that had to be coordinated, so it was just a pain in the ass.