MAKIA: Energy Flows Where Attention Goes

MAKIA: Energy Flows Where Attention Goes

Let’s get one thing straight: you are not in control. Not in the way you think, anyway. You’re a chaotic system of matter and energy, a dissipative structure hurtling through spacetime on a one-way trip called the arrow of time. You believe your thoughts, your intentions, and your precious little plans are what steer the ship. Bullshit. You’re a passenger, and the universe is the driver. But you do have one lever you can pull, one dial you can tune. It’s called your attention. And where you point that thing determines everything.

Most of the self-help gurus and New Age peddlers will sell you a watered-down version of this. They’ll call it “The Law of Attraction” and tell you to just “think positive” and the universe will magically hand you a unicorn. They’re not wrong, but they’re not right either. They’re like a kid who finds a loaded gun and thinks it’s a toy. The principle is real, but the mechanism is far more profound, far more scientific, and far more unforgiving than they’d have you believe. This isn’t about wishful thinking. This is about thermodynamics.

The Problem

Your problem is that you’re a Backward-Looking Person (BLP). You’re obsessed with the past. You ruminate on your mistakes, you cling to old identities, and you try to maintain a state of equilibrium in a universe that is fundamentally, violently, and beautifully out of balance. You think that stability is the goal, that if you can just get everything “in order,” you’ll be happy. You’re trying to build a sandcastle in the middle of a hurricane.

Life isn’t about balance. Life exists at the edge of chaos. As my mentor, the great Dr. Bob Melamede, used to say, we are far-from-equilibrium systems. Equilibrium is death. It’s the state of maximum entropy, where everything is uniform, disordered, and unchanging. It’s a cosmic soup of nothingness. When you resist change, when you fight the natural flow of energy, you are literally aligning yourself with death. You are increasing your own entropy.

Your attention is the most valuable resource you possess. It’s the focusing lens for the firehose of energy that is constantly flowing through you and around you. But you squander it. You give it away to things that don’t matter. You get sucked into the black hole of social media, you obsess over political theater, and you waste your precious processing power on anxieties about a future that doesn’t exist and a past you can’t change. You are pointing your energetic firehose at a brick wall and wondering why you’re not moving forward.

The Application

So how do you stop being a BLP and start living like an FLP? How do you apply MAKIA in your own damn life? It’s simple, but it’s not easy.

First, you need to conduct an audit of your attention. Where is it going? Be brutally honest with yourself. How many hours a day do you spend scrolling through feeds that make you angry or envious? How much time do you waste arguing with strangers on the internet? How much of your mental bandwidth is consumed by replaying old grievances? Write it all down. Look at it. This is the energetic leak you need to plug.

Second, you need to define your “forward.” What do you want? Not what you think you should want, not what your parents wanted for you, but what you, as a complex, self-organizing system, are being called to become. Get specific. Write it down. Make it your North Star. This is where you will point your attention.

Third, you need to practice. This is a skill. It’s a muscle. You need to train your mind to hold its focus. Meditation is the most direct way to do this. Sit down, shut up, and focus on your breath. When your mind wanders (and it will), gently bring it back. Every time you do this, you are strengthening your attentional control. You are learning to be the master of your own energy.

As I deepened my meditation practice and trained my focus, I became more aware of how easily the mind can be influenced by external factors. This awareness led me to reflect on experiences that challenged my previous beliefs, including a moment when I encountered a group of people using cannabis in a way that was thoughtful and balanced, rather than reckless or escapist. This experience reminded me that our perception of reality—and ourselves—is shaped not by external substances, but by where we choose to place our attention. Ultimately, it reinforced a fundamental truth: your reality is a reflection of where you put your attention. If you focus on lack, you will see lack everywhere. If you focus on problems, your life will be a series of problems. If you focus on the past, you will be trapped in it. It’s not magic. It’s physics. You are creating your own universe.

The Takeaway

Your reality is a reflection of where you put your attention. If you focus on lack, you will see lack everywhere. If you focus on problems, your life will be a series of problems. If you focus on the past, you will be trapped in it. It’s not magic. It’s physics. You are creating your own universe, one moment of attention at a time.

Here’s your homework:

1. Track Your Attention for One Week: Use a notebook or an app. Be honest. The results will probably horrify you.
2. Define Your One Thing: What is the single most important thing you want to create or achieve in the next 90 days? Write it on a sticky note and put it on your bathroom mirror. Look at it every single day.
3. Practice 10 Minutes of Focused Silence: Every day, for ten minutes, sit without your phone, without a book, without any distractions. Just be. Focus on the sensation of your breath. That’s it. You’re not trying to achieve enlightenment. You’re just practicing the art of pointing your own damn firehose.

Stop waiting for the world to change. Stop waiting for permission. You are the source of the change. Your attention is the catalyst. Point it wisely.

---