For many men there is no better being than to be going with “The Flow.” When a man is engaged in a complicated, difficult activity, that he was spent much time and energy practicing and it is happening almost effortlessly, life is good. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has not become a household name in America, because most households are not big enough to accommodate his last name. His concept of “Flow” has.
“Flow” happens in those rarified moments when: the basketball shoots itself, the music plays the musician, the hills and curves drive the sports car, the running is effortless, the actor has become the character, the workplace meeting leader is lead by the meeting, the sequence of martial arts moves dance on their own accord, the cup directs the flight of the golf ball.
Another name for the activities that can lead to flow, is “self absorbing activities.” Many men call habitation of this exalted territory as “being In the zone.” In the zone self disappears, it is all action. Time calls a time out. Time flies away. There is just now. If there are thoughts of judgement such as, “this is great, I am good,” they are fleeting and dissolve into greatness and goodness.
Take a moment to go there now. In your imagination watch yourself being in the zone. Its hard to not help but smile. Now, look around for people in your life that you love, where are they? They may be in the zone with you or better put, in their zone, while you are in yours. Singing, harmony, and dancing come to mind. They may be cheering you on with wild excitement and admiration. They might not be around at all. They may be jealous of your abilities or think that silly thing you are into is silly. They may resent the time your practice, perfection, and performance have stolen from your relationship from them.
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Have you dreamed the dream of making a living working in the zone? You know the dream where you become rich and famous or the one where you get to quit your day job. The dreams where loved ones are handsomely compensated for their recognition and support of your talents and relentless pursuit of excellence?
Have you let your dreams seduce you into making expenditures you couldn’t afford on gear and private lessons? Has you time in the zone, pulled people into your life that have done you harm? Have you gotten so high, so many times, that the low has become unbearable without the abuse of substances and/or behavioral addictions?
I loved my work as a social worker. Not all of it. May be not even most of it
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I have more questions than answers. I loved running. Not the running of an athlete, just my running. Running in races could put me in the zone. Running away from my family was the price of admission.
I loved my work as a social worker. Not all of it. May be not even most of it. Yet, there were many, many extra hours that I worked not for pay, not because I was a good guy, not because I wanted a promotion, but because I loved being absorbed in the practice of trying to creatively help a client. Meanwhile, my family waited for me to come home.
In retirement, I stop more to smell the roses and take images of them with my cell phone camera. I stop to take images of all kinds of stuff. It can annoy my wife when I can’t help but get a close up of a crack in the side walk. It annoyed a police officer when I ignored a no trespassing sign to get an image of drift wood with a background of multi – hued ice sheets on a water supply reservoir. It annoyed me too have to pay a $100 fine for that image, an image that did even turn out the way I had hoped.
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I have found sweet self absorption from submitting writing to the Good Men Project. I become lost in my thoughts about the changing face of masculinity. At times the computer keys guide my fingers. Insights are channeled from some where else. I don’t care if it is Zeus or the right hemisphere of my brain. Its not coming from me. How sweet it is.
Often what is going on in the lives of my wife and adult sons can’t help but remind me of something I’ve been thinking about writing or something I read on The Good Men Project site. I stand at the ready to expound. Stand at the ready to observe the dismissive eye rolls.
As men, we have been encouraged to “go for the gold”, collect trophies, increase bowling averages and decrease golf handicaps. We have been encouraged to beat are last personally best time, to collect newspaper clippings and play at more prestigious venues.
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Csikszentmihaly writes, “The flow experience like everything else is not “good” in an absolute sense. It is only good in that it has the potential to make life more rich, intense and meaningful; it is good because it increases the strength and complexities of the self. But whatever the consequence of any particular instance of flow is good in a larger sense needs to be discussed and evaluated in terms of more inclusive social criteria. The question regarding flow is not only how we can make it happen, but also how we can mange it: Using it to enhance life yet being able to let go when necessary.”
As men, we have been encouraged to “go for the gold”, collect trophies, increase bowling averages and decrease golf handicaps. We have been encouraged to beat are last personally best time, to collect newspaper clippings and play at more prestigious venues. We have been encouraged to love the stop watch and the perfecting practice of practice.
Csikszentmihaly challenges us to learn how to pronounce his last name, yes, but he also encourages us to play a bigger game and greatly extend our zone. How good are we at flowing from duty to pleasure? From self service to service for others? Dare we contemplate a life of perfect flow? A place were self and others, practice and perfection flow together? I don’t know, but I get self absorbed just thinking about it.
The skill set I desire is one where I catch cues in pre or post flow that it might be time to shift from self to others. The savvy to look for my zone and when to help someone else be in theirs.
As for right now, I need to go put screens in some windows. My wife asked me. In to a different current in my flow I go. Maybe by next Spring, I will have had enough practice to want to go there.
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