The positive psychology movement contends that people are most content when they are fully engaged in a task for which they are well suited. Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi calls this state flow. According to his research, the best way to achieve happiness is to view it as a “by-product of absorption.” And as Csikzentmihalyi points out, it is counterproductive to focus on whether you are happy or not since being concerned with your state of mind will take you right out of flow. So it is a bit of a Catch 22—you can only be happy if you are in flow. And the minute you stop to see if you are happy, you are out of flow.
I struggle with consciousness a lot in the studio. There is a consciousness that pays me frequent visits, a mind set that is a seriously bad-ass critic. This exasperating voice says the work isn’t progressing as it should and that last week’s progress wasn’t really progress at all. Another consciousness that shows up is obsessed with a particular gesture or approach, precluding the potential to stay open and receptive to what’s new or unexplored. There are others of course.
Welcomed guests in my studio, Kevin Simmers and Joe Gifford
Meanwhile I am blissed out at the memory of those times when I have been in the flow that Csikzentmihalyi describes, and getting there is what I want every day. But like happiness, you can’t get there if flow is your goal. Letting yourself get absorbed in the work is the place to start. It silences the detracting voices and opens up the possibility that, while you were busy working, flow came to town.