Which activities make you lose track of time?

I tried to think hard here. What do I actually enjoy to the point of experiencing “flow” as a scientific term coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. I know I used to enjoy setting out digital art to print and create posters and sales items to place samples on. I also know I used to like watching TV and reading books. I know I still enjoy creating videos from photos and pairing with music. But I still struggle to find that elusive flow at the moment.

Where do I start on this introspective journey?

First I think I need to explain flow a little better. I do not claim to be an expert to the level of Csikszentmihalyi but I will try to slow it down for the back row.

“Flow” is the optimum level of intrinsic motivation where the activity you are participating absorbs you so completely into it that it seems like nothing at all outside of the field of that active matters. Athletes often talk about being in the “zone” and others liken it to being in the “groove”. Funny thing, a groove is a long, narrow cut in a surface and water will flow along it without deviating. This is the entire point of “flow” theory. You stay in the mindset and time will seem to fall to the wayside.

One will experience “flow” when high levels of challenge in the task and skill at the task are hand in hand. I think most things, I sit in a natural state of anxiety, arousal, control, and relaxation, missing out commonly on the elusive “flow”.

Or perhaps, I just have such a short attention span that I am experiencing “flow” but due to using a pomodoro timer to enhance dedication to tasks and finding a motivator to get things done when I procrastinate a lot, I am constantly stopping myself within “flow”?

There is also an “autotelic” personality that was studied where a person does a task for purely intrinsic reasons. Traits of this personality include curiosity, persistence, and humility. Perhaps this is the lesson to learn from today’s prompt.

Curiosity is made up of a yearning to explore, investigate, and learn. I love adventure and perhaps I experience flow on road trips and travelling. I also love art galleries, museums, and historical buildings. I have a lot of pictures on my camera roll of different buildings and different architectural styles and love to learn more about time periods and the culture and people of the eras before us.

Persistence is continuing despite meeting difficulty or opposition. I can say I’m persistent in somethings but not in others. I continue to keep my household running and give a lot of myself to others. I continue to participate in my routine and study but will procrastinate due to anxiety or opposition or difficult times. I can continue being a dedicated parent for a long time even in the face of attitude or obstinance. But there comes a time where I say “this is too much” and then I give up.

I feel persistence is something I want to improve on. We are going through some very difficult times with my father passing away just over a week ago from brain tumours and my husband going through his own cancer treatment and I will unapologetically take some time to grieve and regroup. But when everything goes to a point where life has to go on again, persistence is something I will work hard at redeveloping.

To have humility, one must have a low view of one’s own importance. I can tell you I live to serve my family and others around me, but I feel you cannot get complacent with this concept. With assisting others comes a vice rather than a virtue if you also forget to help yourself. Self care is important as you cannot pour from an empty cup. If you lose yourself in the attempt to be of service, you will not be very good at it and end up imploding.

Humility was actually coined as a “micropsuchia” or an anti-vice by Aristotle. It is a deficiency of a virtue as opposed to an excess such as the vice of vanity. The actual virtue here is modesty.

To be modest or moderate about something, there must be the existence of something good and one must be moderate about how good it actually is. The core here is about being moderate and the absence of giving too little or too much importance on yourself. Thus self care is important if you are going to continue to care for others.

Meanwhile, I actually think I experienced flow writing and researching for this piece. I enjoy writing and I enjoy learning so I do have that in my life.

For now, I will leave you with this thought…

“With regard to honor and dishonor the mean is proper pride, the excess is known as a sort of ‘empty vanity’, and the deficiency is undue humility…”

Aristotle

Until tomorrow, KT18Ø