I just remembered something that filled me with a strange kind of excitement, so I decided to share it.
Let’s go back to 2019, when I played the lead drum during our school’s Traditional Day Ga dance performance.
I wasn’t just playing the drum. At some point, I became part of it.
Every strike seemed to come from somewhere deep inside me. I hit it as hard and as loudly as I could, pouring everything I had into every beat. My palms turned bright red from the impact, but somehow, I didn’t notice the pain.
I was too far gone. Completely immersed in the rhythm.
There were other drummers around me, each carrying their own rhythm, yet I never lost mine. I stayed perfectly in sync with the melody, almost as though the music was guiding my hands instead of the other way around.
For those few minutes, only three things existed in my world. Me, the drum and the rhythm.
Everything else faded into meaningless noise.
I’ve wondered for a long time why that memory stayed with me, and I think I finally understand.
That wasn’t just a performance. It was release.
Every beat carried a little of the frustration, confusion, and weight I had been holding inside me. Things I didn’t know how to explain. Things I probably didn’t even know I needed to explain.
Without saying a single word, I emptied myself into that drum. By the time the performance ended, I felt different, lighter, happier and free.
Almost as though I had walked onto that stage carrying something heavy and left part of it behind with every beat.
Years later, I finally have a name for what I think happened to me that day, Flow state.
That strange place where you become so absorbed in what you’re doing that everything else disappears. Time, pain, distraction, even yourself, to some extent.
And looking back, I think two things carried me there. Passion and freedom.
I loved what I was doing, and for those few minutes, I was completely free to express it.
No overthinking. No suppressing anything. No trying to explain how I felt.
Just rhythm.
And somehow, all those emotions I had kept buried inside me found somewhere else to go.
They became sound. They became movement.
They became something creative enough for me to feel them without being consumed by them.
Without knowing it, I had stumbled upon an outlet for all that negative pent-up energy.
Ever since I left that stage, some part of me has been knocking at that door, trying to enter again.
I’ve tried a lot of things since then, but none has given me quite the same out-of-body experience I had that day.
That freedom.
That state where the noise in your head goes silent.
Where passion meets freedom and everything flows.
“ If you’ve been there before, tell me about your experience.
Maybe if we compare notes, we can figure out how to enter again. ”