Looking for a "peak experience?"

As the lava lamp was invented and Dr. King wrote his "Letter from Birmingham Jail," there was another social force in the making. American psychologist Abraham Maslow coined the term, peak experience, in 1963.

He described it as "rare," "oceanic," and "deeply moving." Surpassing ordinary consciousness, this is transcendent. Climbing over the ordinary into the realm of the limitless may be a boat you'd like to hop on now, or perhaps it sounds false or foreboding.

However, these moments of intense satisfaction can be as accessible as being astonished by the wonder of natural surrounds, an Aha! insight, or being in the flow of effortless athletic pursuit.

For our peak experience, we can get involved creatively in the kitchen or on a canvas. We can frolic within friendships or feelings of pure joy. The deeply moving oceanic resides at a beachfront not so far away after all.