Focus and Creativity – Fall 2021 Research

Gathering information for the Focus and Creativity Guide has exposed me to new topics. Writing notes on paper helps me remember what I learn and discover connections. Writing note increases the chances my connections are exposed to the world to be further processed by others. These notes are about how to understand and benefit from focusing.

Flow State

The flow state is the name of a state of mind. When someone is in the flow state they are using all of their attention to complete an engaging challenge. It requires a balance of skill and relaxation. First one needs enough skills to remain engaged and relaxed to not burn energy needed to focus on the skill. Lastly people in the flow state tend to remain engaged without noticing time is passing. Video games are excellent for putting people into flow states by designing challenging and fun rules and environments. This dynamic is true for other sit down games like chess or card games. Lets see how the flow state applies to 3 other common activities. TV, Reading, Athletics:

• Television gives us a chance to observe stories over time through movies, documentaries or shows broken into episodes and seasons. This is a wonderful way to view life and learn about others as much as we are able to connect to characters through story telling. The more we know about a world the easier it might be to lose time and find yourself binge watching something interesting.
• Reading requires relaxation and practice to help the eyes better flow across and understand the words. I’ve met more than one person who explained they saw what they read in their mind. These descriptions sound like they day dreamed the book from a higher level. This would seem to make reading and flowing easier. At the same time speed reading with understanding can be done by anyone who learns the skills. At times I am able to read faster and still understand what is happening. Here is one of many videos on the topic :

To have an opportunity to enter the flow state, enough stamina and skills seem to be the cost. This may take time for a beginner trying to catch up with experts. However focused passion can help us get through the awkward early stages of increasing a skill. I got this book as an audio book and found it as a helpful introduction.

Resistance Versus Passion

I was introduced to resistance while listening to this audio book: War of Art by Steven Pressfield. A friend recommended this book after I explained my self development struggles to her. The author explains a formula to find ones passion by first noticing how they are unique. Being aware of what calls you in life can help identify your resistance to go after your passion.

Ignoring your passion is a dangerous way of like in the book. Someone might know their unique passion from a young age and get old without exploring it. The author compares this to getting side-tracked and that resistance encourage us to remain in the negative feelings we feel. Resistance will convince us not to take any steps towards our passion by making up feel the depression or sickness of not feeling like yourself. Resistance will express ideas that help us procrastinate by focusing on excuses to not get started with our unique journey motivated through passion and purpose.

Becoming aware that resistance helps us see it as a harmless fog that stands between you and your heart desires. This book opened my eyes to seeing that I’ll feel horrible until I address the fog. The fog will say, “turn around. No, not this way.” While traveling through the fog, I might get reminded that failure might hurt and how horrible and unchangeable the world is. Passion will have you singing while cutting through the fog, take a step then another step towards your passion.

Fellowship

This is a concept I picked up studying a book called, The Book of Changes or I-Ching. This ancient text is written in poetic form and has been translated by Richard Whilhem and Baynes. The poems speak of how the world and everything within it changes yet stay the same. Through understanding and respecting different dynamics, you can understand how influence the world for the better.

Fellowship is the idea that within groups of able humans growth comes from the actions of the yielding and able personality. Able humans use their time to produce a lasting impact on society and may get results. The able human will usually find effective and practical ways of getting things done and rise to represent the leadership.

The yielding and able human will not clash which naturally happens efficient groups meet. As much as people have differences and stronger dominate weaker people, the leader doesn’t fall into traps such as making sub groups that contradict the original goal. The original goal must be universally beneficial for all the groups. At the same time, group members must understand and agree on how they benefit the greater good. The yielding personality performs a service for society by decreasing path’s to war by maintaining fellowship with other able humans. This model could lead to long term stability by adding able people to the fellowship from around the world. This is one of 64 poems connected to this text. I will blog more on the other poems at this site.

Theory Vs Practice

While studying the roots of the I Ching I found myself learning about its history and connection to martial arts through the YMAA. They provide books and online articles that explain their understanding of the history of marital arts. These books are well cited and have made me aware of the benefits of reading about martial arts. In this book, learned the benefit of learning the theory behind a practice, increased the speed that someone understands and learns to build their skills.

Learning the theory of practicing a skill from a master reminds me of mentor-ship. In martial arts, a master of the art is usually a teacher and practitioner. This means they can teach by example and live a lifestyle in line with their beliefs. A mentor has usually done what the masters of ancient china did in their times, by learning to live a stable life in challenging situations. Sometimes a road to an honest living is one relationship away. Finding a mentor is like making a friend who will agree to teach you something you are passionate about mastering.

The same book had a story about humility being an empty cup. Once, a man skilled at martial arts wanted to impress and learn from a famous master. The skilled man began by explaining all the great things he did in his life then asking to learn. The master saw this as a contradiction. He saw the mans mind as a cup already filled with liquid. Everything the skilled man was sharing with the master learned would block him from learning the basic steps the master would help him build upon. Clearing your mind is like emptying a physical cup to get the new liquid. Being open-minded is essential to learning new things.

Journaling/ Writing

This is where I end this session of research note. This process helps me with active recall. This is a way to make sure you learn new concepts by putting them into your own words. This might be as simple as recording voice notes or creating art. The idea is to get the ideas out of your head on paper. This has many benefits and is an essential part of becoming aware of your unique perspective.

To Summarize, you can organize your thoughts and express emotions located in the mind. The fact that all of these things are invisible make it even more important if you find yourself unable to focus. I want you to find focus and will speak about more tools to try. Thanks for reading. If you are looking for the model paper plane, here are updates.