Peril and Victory

I made it through day 3 of 3, but not without some suffering and peril.

Timing was the issue here, and now comes the time for me to decide between honoring the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, or maybe leaving it up in the air and taking each occasion as it comes.

This won't be the last time there will be Things Going On that interfere with my plans (for world domination). It wasn't even a big deal that threw me off, just lunch. Lunch happened at yoga time, and I was craving orange chicken so Reagan took me out for (fast) Chinese. After that we spent some time at Barnes and Noble (which was good, objectively and subjectively), meaning it was around 5pm when we got home.

I stuck to a promise and started rice cooking, did yoga, and by the time rice was done, and I'd eaten the premiere portion, it was close to 7pm. The drawings I did earlier in the day don't really fulfill the amount of daily practice I ask of myself.

Add to that a mile long walk, a long discussion with Reagan about my creativity, and an addictive FaceBook game that scratches an itch that's been growing over the past week, and at 10 and 11pm I'm watching the clock and telling myself, "I can still do drawing before the 12am deadline..."

I did in the end. A half-page worth.

All is not lost, I can continue drawing and being productive after posting, but midnight is when I take my unofficial inventory of the day. I think I scraped by with a C-minus. The flexibility early on was fine, working around being active and spending time with Reagan, and accomplishing extra-curricular things like making fresh rice. The devolvement into internet frivolity in the evening is what brings down my marks.

Strange that earlier in the day I expressed to Reagan my growing urges to play a resource-hoarding game. Whenever I spend large amounts of time drawing, in my brain wells up a seemingly-unrelated desire to collect virtual "things". Every day I collect digital things (images (for drawing)), but this new itch is to gather gold and credits and resources and quantities of items in an artificial environment.

In any MMORPG I've played I have spent a slim majority of my time fighting battles and pursuing quests, and the remainder gathering items, organizing them and managing my inventories. That--collecting and crafting and improving my ability to make things--is the kind of game that holds the most appeal for me, and I'm most compelled to seek them out in periods of intensive drawing. Maybe it's my left brain re-asserting itself after long sessions of right brain exercise. Actually, that sounds about right. Now that I know, I hope I can channel it into something less time-destructive.

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Another train of thought departing from the station of "Thoughts on Sunday Relating to Productivity, Structure, and Flexibility" travels on a track laid by this Wired article I read a few months ago. Much of the article focuses on the memory study Wozniak does, but my interest is in Wozniak himself. Through years of self-experimentation, he has pursued anonymity and largely disengaged himself from social circles because spending time away from routines means Wozniak will miss a key study session and possibly forget bits of knowledge he would otherwise remember.

Pursuits of higher functionality often puts humans at odds with the world around them. Wozniak has his memory sessions, and anyone pursuing an polyphasic sleep cycle will have mid day naps while others are splashing around at the water park. There's nothing rationally efficient when it comes to socializing.

Where does this leave me? I want the rational efficiency, the organization and the structure. The objective productivity. But then my right brain feels oppressed. It doesn't have the same reactionary refuge as my left brain (which inspires me to magic bean counting), no automatic function to engage which restores balance.

I've considered dividing my day up like a pie, similar to what I'm doing now with study in the AM, draw in the PM, stretch at 3. I'd take it farther, though, and assign a basic activity to enough slices that all 24 hours of the day would be covered. If I'm asleep during a particular time, I'm asleep. If other things pull me away from my desk, they pull me away from my desk, but lacking anything else to do, my daily schedule would give me something productive to do.

In some ways that feels too regimented. I picture school bells and class sessions and trudging from one activity to the next without true liberation from obligation.

As each idea, each phase of introspection passes through my mind, I wind a little closer to uncovering what I really want, the true grail I am digging through this angst for. Somewhere in the last paragraphs (see if you can find the point where I lose momentum and hastily wrap things up) I unearthed a piece of that puzzle, and wrote the key down on a sticky note (and stuck it to my monitor). What I am truly seeking with my self-challenge for productivity through stretching a bit here and jotting a bit down there is a ritual for invoking flow.

I honestly believe that Flow has been lacking from my creative pursuits this year, even if I haven't grokked that fact until now. I don't think I'll be able to go straight from this long, long string of non-Flow days to consistently achieving that mental state, but knowing where I'm going will be a start.

Incidentally, earlier today I decided what new element will be introduced to my self-challenge tomorrow, and while the word "flow" did not come to mind, the new piece of my outward-growing puzzle is decidedly pro-Flow.

Even before I started this journal entry, the last item to cross off from my objective inventory for the day, I was mentally writing an inventory of today's concepts. None are extraordinarily new, even the horrifying pregnancy-related dream I woke up from (I am not pregnant, nor is it likely I will become pregnant, and that may or may not have to do with three terrifying dreams about pregnancy I've experienced). Other themes of note were me vs. society, me vs. art, my art vs. society, and so on, often coming back to my desires for grandeur, a cousin to my longing for community that opens to me as easily as I open to it.

But curled in my husband's arms, plagued with imaginary pressures for prodigious and precocious success, I made a step towards throwing off the dis-ease. I vowed not to expect anything to happen with my art career (as far as it granting me friends, fame, or tangible bounty) until after I graduate from art school (essentially four years from now). Even though I protest, "But I want more friends!", I know on a deeper level that accepting such a thought will give me greater freedom to explore my creativity and make it mine if I'm not concerning myself with intentionally impressing people.

Backtracking a bit, many of "me vs. art/society" threads, at least somewhere along their lengths, were entangled in the knot of Internet, so that nebulous beast was discussed with Reagan as well. (My fire for the topic was both fueled and stomped on by earlier (bookstore) encounters with Artful Blogging magazine and 1000 Artist Journal Pages. But that's another other entry.) Imagine that infamous tantrum (honestly, from before my time) complete with stomping and hair-tossing: "Internet, Internet, Internet!!!" Fortunately I have a problem-solving luxury that Miss Brady didn't. I can cut down on the amount of internet in my life. And that's what I plan to do.

At last! She brings it all together! Back to the topic of self-challenge and the new step that unsurprisingly dovetails with the quest for Flow!

Over the past couple days I've fancied that the new twist in my plan would be to do a daily photo, or a fiction writing session, or otherwise add an activity. I thought I'd deepen the complexity and raise the standards of accomplishment, but instead the next strategic move is to simplify. I'm promising to, for a period of three to four hours, turn off my instant messenger and banish the browser windows that beg for my attention. Correction: the browser windows my mind wanders to, and clings to like a crutch so it doesn't have to face terror of creating.

While there is no guarantee that burning these bridges (temporarily!) will free up headspace and declutter my mind, they will reduce interruptions which are the mortal enemy of Flow, and also cut down on distractions, which are my mortal enemy, and thus my battle to fight. And fight it I shall.

In summary:
+ Keep the left and right brain in balance
+ Seek Flow
+ I have the luxury to focus on my creativity.
+ I should do so.
+ Simplify.
+ Calm down!

Tomorrow is day 1 of 7. Also known as Monday.