Peak Experience

Abraham Maslow was a brilliant Psychologist way back when. After studying other brilliant people such as Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Frederick Douglass, he discovered what motivates them. He called it the hierarchy of needs.
He explains the hierarchy of needs as a pyramid. The bottom of the pyramid represents the basic needs and thereby motivation of man (chicks too). It is only when the bottom level is accomplished can you move to the higher level. Only when the second level of needs/motivation are accomplished can you move to the next level. And so on, and so on, and so on...
Trouble begins when you start to level jump. Christians would call this: being unequally yolked. It is hard to have balance in your life if you are trying to fulfill your creativity (top of pyramid) when you do not have access to water (bottom of pyramid).
There is another concept that goes along with the hierarchy of needs. It is called the "peak experience". This is the term Maslow gives to the Nervonic sensation of having balance in the pyramid (or at least on the path to balance). It is the feeling where all time has stopped, you are looking at both your past and your future and it is all encompassingly comfortable. It is the feeling that what ever happens from then on, you can be happy because you had and will continue to have that moment.
The first one I experienced was when I was about 10. I was staying with a friend at his grandparents cabin in Hendersonville Michigan on Lake Huron. I woke up just before sunrise when everyone was still sleeping and I walked out to the yard short of the 15 foot grassy cliff that led to the beach. As I stood there, I looked beyond the edge of the little cliff and stared into calm glassy lake I noticed there was no horizon. There was no break between the water in front of me and the sky above me. It was the first moment where I felt apart of something bigger then I could dream. Not dwarfed by it, a living breathing member of it.
It has been too long since I have felt that. Things have been so out of balance in my life. Last night I was fishing with my wife on a friend's pontoon. It is a beast of a monstrosity and it is perfect platform for going after monster walleye and pike which is what we plan to do next week. I kept watching the beautiful Michigan sun set and noticed it was getting more brilliant as the evening went on. And then, there it was again. Even after all these years I recognized it. This time it was when I saw my wife silhouetted against the beautiful radiant colors; fully content enjoying what I so love to do.
It wasn't a peak experience because we were fishing or because of the phenomenal sunset. It was a peak experience because I can now foresee many Nervonic moments to come.