On Flow
This post is written by guest contributor Frances Figart: a connector of people, a string bracelet maker, a sea kayaker, a writer, a traveler, a meditation practitioner and the marketing and communications director for Seascape Kayak Tours in Costa Rica and New Brunswick. Check out the Seascape Kayak Tours Facebook page as well.
My friend Cindi Cusick recently graduated from Eastern Kentucky University with a bachelor of fine arts degree. She is 46. Although I was not able to attend her senior show in May because of working in Costa Rica, I visited her in her studio in late March on a trip home to see my mom, and stood agape at the amazingly personal expression she had accomplished through metal and glaze stoneware sculptures. Looking at the scope of the work, I was reduced to tears. We shared one of those moments between friends where no words are really necessary, and then we proceeded to unload some of the hardships in both of our lives over the past year. Cindi inspired me that day to pick something – anything – that I could do as a personal art form, a craft to help sooth me in times of stress, something I could do with my hands and not my head.
And so, I returned to making bracelets out of embroidery floss, a skill I had learned as a camp counselor years ago. At first it took a while to relearn the simple art, but now that I’ve gotten the hang of it, I’m getting a great deal of joy from the few moments per day that I jump off the computer and dedicate myself to my “string work.” Last night, a friend Linda Hanford was here with us after a paddle on Deer Island, in New Brunswick. She was working hard and fast to complete a scarf she was knitting for one of her best friends. When I showed her my latest string project, she commented on how this type of work really puts one in their “flow.” That reminded me that I’d written an essay a few years back about the concept of flow. When I looked it up today, I saw that I’d written it almost exactly four years ago, just before the genesis of what would become a major life transition for me, ultimately leading to the life I lead today. When I wrote the essay that follows, to which I have made only slight updates, I was inspired by another friend, Paul Ramey, who now, at the age of 40, has just completed his most mature, broad and epic accomplishment thus far in the musical realm, a “flowing,” sensitive gothic rock opera called Veil & Subdue.
In his best-selling 1990 book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced “chick-sent-me-high-ee”) defined and explored the concept of “flow” as our experience of optimal fulfillment and engagement. Flow, whether in creative arts, athletic competition, engaging work or spiritual practice, is a deep and uniquely human motivation to excel, exceed, and triumph over limitation.
Csikszentmihalyi gives me a form of self-confidence through his concept of “flow” that I confess I never gained from the term “art.” As a society, we tend to think of “art” as primarily the creative arts – music, visual art forms and creative writing being the three that most readily come to mind. But those of us not blessed with talent in one of these areas are often left feeling like the ugly duckling or the Cinderella in a world full of artistically graced swans and stepsisters.
As a child, I recall the piano lessons, ballet and tap lessons, violin lessons and voice lessons my mother was enterprising enough to involve me in – all of which gave me my true appreciation for music, but none of which “stuck” in the sense that I ever felt from them “optimal fulfillment and engagement.” Instead, I felt sick on the curvy roads to and from the lessons, mortal fear at recitals, self-consciousness about my too-thin body at dance reviews, and basically overwhelmed with what I call the perfectionist’s script for self-defeat: with so many things to do, how could I ever do any one thing well?
To escape from the pressure, I’d retreat to my bedroom where hundreds of paper dolls waited to come to life under my direction. Silly as it sounds, for an only child with a vivid imagination, the world of girls and boys cut out from Simplicity magazine – evenly matched in size and each with his or her own intricately developed emotional and psychological makeup, set of academic skills, and personal history – was the key to power. This game cast me as the director, organizer and creator. I set up detailed schedules for each person and then watched with glee as my random schedule-making schemes placed Janice in a science class with Tom, a boy she had a crush on, or Jeff in choir with Candy, a girl he had broken up with and no longer wished to see. Aside from the social element, students gained skills that helped them determine their future careers; they made friends who would be with them for life, and siblings supported each other through difficult family issues. So empowering was this “flow” that I played with these dolls long past the “appropriate” age, and can vividly recall nervously throwing the covers down to hide all my dolls in their classrooms when my father unexpectedly knocked on my door when I stayed home from school with a cold as a high school freshman.
That very year, another form of flow superseded that of the dolls. My English teacher, Debby Douglas, was handing me back my umpteenth paper marked with an A++ and she must have seen something in my face that betrayed a certain disappointment and realized that I needed encouragement that defied expectation; I was used to getting these A’s no matter what I did. “Other students get A’s,” she said, “but you need to understand that what you do is in a whole other category: this is something you do like no one else. You should really pursue it.” From that moment on, I had my flow. I knew where I wanted to go, what I wanted to do – the world revolved around words, writing, communication: that was my music, my “art.”
And yet, still that word “art” did it’s best to make me feel left out. Because, save for bad lyrics written during some romantic squabble, I was never a creative writer. In college, I won contests for critical/analytical essays dissecting the language of Spencer and Shakespeare poems, short stories by Hemingway – even the lyrics of songs by Joni Mitchell. I was a nerdy writer, while those around me were poets, painters and potters, violinists, vocalists and artistic visionaries.
And then one day, years later, when I had my own business as a freelance writer, I decided to face the challenge. I knew I’d envied my friends who were musicians and artists too long. But why? Was it because I had not yet found that “deep and uniquely human motivation to excel, exceed and triumph over limitation.” “What is my art?” I asked myself. What is it that truly puts me into the world of “flow”? My writing did it, yes. But often, in order to make a buck, I was forced to write about topics for which I held no real passion. So what was my passion?
It was then that I remembered the paper dolls. And through a good, hard look at the nature of that experience, I realized that I had not just been playing a game; I’d been grooming myself, teaching myself, preparing myself for my future contributions to the world. My true gift was bringing people together, connecting and directing them to do great things, allowing them to support one another, and providing them a means to learn their true callings.
This realization took a shape that rapidly sprung to life in the form of a non-profit organization, Greater Opportunities for Women, to help low-income women in Kentucky learn about their talents and develop better job skills while supporting one another in a group, attending classes together for ten weeks. While developing and implementing this complex program, I felt like “an artist” in the truest sense, staying up all night in a rush of inspiration to finish creating an aspect of this intricately detailed work. I was like the conductor of a symphony, directing a team of volunteers to work together to pull off complex pieces of the “music” that I could not perform alone. It was near the end of my four-year endeavor that my dear friend Paul Ramey pointed out that unlike a writer, musician or visual artist, my art is four-dimensional because it touches the realm of possibility and actualizes people to realize their dreams. Once when one of the 60 women who attended the program decided to drop out, my mother said, “Unlike the paper dolls, GO Women don’t always stay where you put them.”
Always perceptive, my mother hit the nail on the head with this statement. And ultimately, control freak that I am, perhaps that’s why I eventually handed the executive director role off to someone else, a person who is shaping GO Women, appropriately enough, into a program for those with artistic leanings. Perhaps I just couldn’t maintain that level of artistic intensity for longer than four years; after all, artists have their “periods.” Not incidentally, both Paul and Cindi helped with GO Women a great deal. But I probably learned more from the adventure than anyone else; I learned that art, for me, is whatever gets me “in the flow,” whatever challenges me to go beyond my limits, and to excel and triumph in new ways. Today, working with a sustainable kayak tour operator who also happens to be the love of my life, I continue to connect people, wield words and direct projects with positive results – and aspire to continually challenge myself in this way.
I am inspired by my friends like Cindi and Paul, who can deliver truly creative writing, stirring pieces of music and awesome visual arts that communicate a unique personality and artistic sensitivity. I know architects, dancers, muralists and quilt makers, film directors and flautists, photographers, potters and pianists, published authors and pastel artists, gourd painters and guitarists, sculptors, singers and songwriters – who all make me feel awe and amazement. But I am just as inspired by those who express their art in non-traditional ways. My partner has an unmatched art when it comes to communicating about responsible tourism and teaching people of all ages to appreciate special environments from a kayak. One friend creates art through yoga, another through massage. I know animal caretakers, beekeepers, bicycle repairers, camp directors, carpenters, chefs, doctors, equestriennes, financial analysts, hair dressers, landscapers, language instructors, nutritionists, pastors, pharmacists, travel agents, zen masters, mentors and mothers who all make an art of what they create when in their flow. Some even make an art out of helping others to die gracefully and with dignity. We all have to challenge ourselves to go beyond our limits, limits we have largely, though often unwittingly, set for ourselves.
“Come, my friends. ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.” These words from Tennyson’s Ulysses, some of the few that stick in memory from my studies in English Literature, continue to send chills up my spine each time I hear them. Just as Ulysses rallied around him his old sailing buddies to go upon a new, and perhaps final, quest, we are never too old to set out on a new voyage, and see the world in a different way than we ever could before.
Whatever challenges you, whatever you wish that you could do, but feel you can’t – I encourage you to give it a try. You might become a new kind of artist – with a whole new sense of flow.