"Time flies when you're having fun!"
This commonplace statement has been placed into a psychological context by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Here's Wikipedia's definition of his concept, called "flow":
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Flow is a mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.
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Several components are mentioned; the following are particularly pertinent to my thoughts:
- 2. Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
- 3. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.
- 4. Distorted sense of time - our subjective experience of time is altered.
I've been reading the additional material contained in the extended edition of
Smith of Wootton Major, pondering Tolkien's thoughts on the nature of Faery as written in both the story and his explanatory essay, and thinking about possible areas of Faery in my life. It occurred to me that the passage of time, which is different in Faery than in the "real world", is an important factor.
That can happen in the movie theater, for example - coming outside when the film is over and having the feeling of temporal disorientation - either so much happened that it seems to have been longer than it actually was, or time flew by so quickly that it's hard to realize that it's so late already. It can happen while listening to music, if totally absorbed in it, or better yet, while playing a musical instrument. It can take place during a task, either of work or hobby, that captures our total attention.
In
Smith, the character leaves his everyday life behind him to travel to Faery. Here's where one additional statement concerning "flow" comes into the picture:
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The other important condition for getting into flow, is the non-disturbing environment. Every disturbance, such as a phone call, or a new person entering the room, will probably pull you out from flow experience back to the reflecting mode.
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What do you think - is "flow" a modern form or definition of Faery? Have you ever had the impression that you were in another world, so to speak, while caught up completely in an activity?