Go With The Flow Redux

By Paul Roberts

“Nice job tonight. I’m starting to see more character on stage.”

Those are roughly the words the director said to Lloyd and Marvin at the end of rehearsal last Thursday evening. She had seen something in the performance that had not been there previously, even though the lines being said were the same as the previous night’s rehearsals.

Lloyd is my character in the upcoming show at the Sixth Street Theater in Wallace. Marvin is my ice fishing buddy, played by my good friend Ken Bartle. Guys on Ice also features Gordon Turner as Ernie the Moocher, and Joy Persoon on the piano (right there in the ice shanty), all under the direction of Ken’s wife Cherri.

That same ensemble staged Guys on Ice back in 2018, and we’re enjoying the process of putting it together for another run the first three weekends in November.

And while we’re at it, I’m searching for the ever elusive experience of flow.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Me-high Cheek-sent-me-high), is a researcher who coined the term ‘flow’, the experience when an individual has a feeling of “timelessness”, when the task seems easy and things just “come together.” I referred to him and his research back in February in one of my blogs, and the concept of flow has come up at least three times in the last couple of weeks, so I decided to spend some time with it again.

Cziksentmihalyi defines it in his book, ‘Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience’ (2008):

“A state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”

I will admit that spending four nights a week in rehearsal is beginning to feel like a “great cost”, and we still have three weeks to go before the show opens the first weekend of November. It also costs me time during the day, as I try to follow the advice I used to give to students when they were working on lines: “If you only work your lines at rehearsal, you’ll never get there. Study at home!” Medice cura te ipsum. (If you’re curious, look it up!)

Cziksentmihalyi suggests that when we involve ourselves in creative,  pleasurable, engaging, meaningful activities we are enhancing our opportunity to experience flow. Activities that are not so easy that they require little effort or initiative, but not so hard that we know we can’t complete the task.

Csikszentmihalyi also describes eight characteristics of flow:

1. Complete concentration on the task;
2. Clarity of goals and reward in mind and immediate feedback;
3. Transformation of time (speeding up/slowing down);
4. The experience is intrinsically rewarding;
5. Effortlessness and ease;
6. There is a balance between challenge and skills;
7. Actions and awareness are merged, losing self-conscious rumination;
8. There is a feeling of control over the task.

Whatever creative endeavors you put your hand to this week, I hope you have the opportunity to “lose yourself” in the task. In my “on stage” experience, the search for flow is realized only after the work is done.

It’s 4 p.m. Rehearsal is in a couple of hours. I still have time to wander around my backyard learning my lines. 

“Flow is neither good nor bad. It simply is. Flow can lead to experiencing life more fully and intensely. We can experience more meaning. It also can strengthen how we define who we are (Cziksentmihalyi, 2009).”

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In my last post about flow, back in February, I asked “What experiences have you had in your life with the idea of “flow?”

Since February, have you experienced a creative time of flow? Yes? No? Tell us about it. 

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