Dear Diary,
For quite some time now, I’ve operated in a certain way, and when it didn’t work, I put it down to try again later. With music, I had a feeling I wanted to convey, and as I moved through the creative process, I meandered through the sonic landscape, exploring signals until I found something that resonated with what I felt inside; the song formed itself, and I was merely a conduit. With writing, I know the overall message, and the words type themselves on screen like a bridge from intro to conclusion; the piece writes itself, and I am merely a conduit. In both cases, if the pieces stopped forming themselves, it was time to stop, as I had already learned the lessons of trying to force creativity in my younger days: It rarely produces your best work.
There is an adage stating, ‘Time flies when you’re having fun.’ If we expand it more accurately, it should say, ‘Time flies when you’re not observing it.’ Dear reader, have you ever taken a test or given a presentation in front of others (whether it’s one important person or a group) and felt anxious, vulnerable, or exposed? Such a feeling is you dividing your attention between the task at hand and observing yourself perform it to ‘ensure’ you do it correctly. When you’re alone practicing time and again, and you’ve ‘got it’ but in front of others you’re not so sure, the difference is alone you’re not observing yourself, whereas in front of others you are.
We evolved from more primitive brains, and we have retained the part that scans endlessly, on the lookout for danger. For people like me who have experienced much conflict and trauma, I scan rapidly and generate frequent ‘false positives’ because my brain treats any noise or other stimulus as a potential source of danger, like a ‘ping’ on a radar screen. I have to expend energy to disregard the ‘pings’ to maintain whatever state I was in at the time. As we observe ourselves doing tasks, every act of monitoring, analysis, and concern about reception consumes energy. Is it any wonder we are frequently exhausted when not only do we work so hard, but we often effectively spend twice the energy working?
Another downside of self-monitoring is it has no end until we end it intentionally. We think about thinking, and we judge our judgments. We concern ourselves with whether we do things correctly, but that very act takes us away from where we want to be. For example, if we’re resting correctly, breathing, eating mindfully, or doing walking meditation. We need not be in our minds judging all of these things, for the act of judging itself takes away from the intent and purpose of the activity.
Fortunately, we already have a phrase for when we successfully stop monitoring ourselves mid-activity! (To be) ‘In the Zone.’ We commonly associate this phrase with masterful athletes executing their sport while ‘making it look easy.’ However, what is actually happening is a lack of divided attention; the athlete has done the task so many times there is nothing left to analyze. The mind can rest, and the body can execute to its fullest; the task can execute itself. Being ‘In the Zone’ is certainly not exclusive to athletics and is achievable by us all! (*1)
For people in the USA, how many times have you hopped in your vehicle and driven from point A to point B with scarcely a thought about driving? Obviously, there are downsides to taking a heavy piece of metal at 30+ mph down the road with only partial attention. Still, my point was sometimes we arrive somewhere and immediately don’t remember having driven there, or are amazed by how swift the journey was. The journey was likely about the same length as it always took; we just stopped keeping track of the time.
The upside of letting go of constant self-evaluation is peace. All the self-generated stress from observing ourselves as we execute a task and ‘hoping’ we won’t fail becomes a practiced, calm, peaceful pace of life. Absent the double negativity of generating stress and expending more energy to put it down or channel it elsewhere, we will have more mental and emotional capacity to go about our lives.
All those times you’ve heard teachers (or masters in movies) telling you to learn it all, then forget it all, knew exactly what it’s all about. In order to be ‘in the zone’ and stop dividing our attention, there has to be a certain level of skill involved. We can’t ‘forget it all,’ as in let our minds rest, until we’ve put in the necessary work; our level of intellectual understanding needs to have reached an adequate level, and experience can take over from here, a.k.a., until we’ve ‘learned it all.’ I feel I’m here with my writing. I don’t overthink, I don’t think much at all; I let the words form themselves, and if they don’t fit quite right, I give the words another opportunity to try again. I can say I don’t ‘try again’ nearly as often as I used to. If I’m truly at a block, I walk away to meditate more and come back later when I feel I’m ready to let my hands move as I stare out the window or listen to music (as I’m doing both right now, and it’s a beautiful day outside).
Practice, but don’t rush. Learn, but don’t overanalyze. When you understand, let it all go and just be. You are worth it!
reBLUEvinate!
(*1) I would like to thank the (mostly) women who donate knitted and crocheted blankets to the USO and other similar organizations. I received one as a gift while deployed, and the touch of humanity was most welcome. I’ve since met some of the people who make the blankets, and it makes me smile how their hands move independently of the rest of them. I’ve sat and watched them watch movies, have entire engaging conversations, etc., without missing a stitch or breaking rhythm. They didn’t once even look at their hands; they didn’t have to.