Faery and Flow - the Passage of Time

[Estelyn Telcontar]

"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":

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.

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:

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.

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?

[davem]

I'm not sure they're the same thing - though it could be argued that 'flow' is a necessary state for entering Faerie. Flow, as you describe it, seems to be akin to the Buddhist's ''one pointed meditation.

Time in Faerie does move at a different rate. As it does is dream. In a dream days or years may seem to pass, yet we awake & only a few hours have passed in the Primary world. The main events in LotR take six months, yet it may take us anything from a few days to many months to read through them. Faerie time passes at a different rate. Smith's life is encapsulated in about 30 pages, yet even though we read the story in an hour or so, we have experienced the whole of Smith's life.

So, 'flow' is the entering of a different mental space. We are neither in our time nor in Faerie time. Effectively, like the travellers to Faerie, we find ourselves in a 'borderland', mentally standing between (& thus outside of) the worlds. In that state it is easy to ('cross over'.

Clearly, when we read, or hear, a story, we enter a different state - we shut out the world around us, & enter another world. Our bodies may be sitting in our own house, but our minds have entered another reality.

So, not Faerie as such (imo), but the necessary precursor to entry. Yet, it is not difficullt to achieve - so it could be argued (or theorised) that it is not an unnatural state - that it is, in fact, a completely natural one. Robert Kirk, in his Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns & Fairies, used the term 'Walkers between the worlds' for those who had the ability to pass into Faerie & implied that some form of 'trance' was involved. I think 'flow' is the same thing. Of course, one has to believe in Faerie to get there.

(I was going to suggest the word 'trance-ition' but that sounds a bit new-agey, so I won't.)

[HerenIstarion]

I'll share my own impression of two intsances of the 'flow' I've personally experienced:

First is indeed like a trance, when I cease to be aware of time at all and most striking instance ocurred (I vividly remember the feeling) when I've been reading RoTK after waiting for it for two years (the story in short - I did not know English back than, and between publication of translations of Books 1-4 and 5-6 approximately two years have passed).

The 'flow' associated with labour evokes different kind of feeling in me (and I have been having more of it recently than I've bargained for) - it usually occurs when I'm approaching a deadline and feel that time is short and workload on my hands is bigger than the timespan left may possibly contain. Than I'm not 'unaware' of time passage, on the contrary, I'm more than sharply aware of it, I feel hours rushing by with my very skin. Though, I must admit, I work better under stress, as I'm more focused and set to the task and do not digress (as I do now, per instance, posting here instead of doing the job - but now the deadline I should hand over the work is still far off for me to worry )

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by Esty

Have you ever had the impression that you were in another world, so to speak, while caught up completely in an activity?

Certainly. Frequently.

"And I look over and see him thrown through the--"

"You're joking! He didn't throw him!"

He nods solemnly, a twinkle lighting his dark eyes. "He did."

We laugh at his audacity. The fool. What was he thinking, picking a fight he could never win? I stare out the window, listening to the sound of his voice, recalling the events of a weekend that I missed. I was only gone the weekend. How could so much have happened? Were even the trees changing without me? The leaves were greener... maybe golden. Had they been so bright before? The flowers... they certainly had not been in bloom. I love tiger lilies. I'd have remembered. They could not have been there.

Tiger lilies... mum's garden. A childhood of fantasy; thank you Rowling and Tolkien. We never played house... we played potions. Raiding the gardens for fallen blossoms, purloining fruits and vegetables. Chopped fine and stewed over nicked candles, we brewed noxious mixes that were magical and drinkable only to the Elves in the field behind the house. We were not divine enough to try; brews so special could not be consumed by humans. Mum always wondered where her nutmeg went. And the dented broom... sword fights in the yard... Everything seemed bigger then. More inaccessible. An adventure behind every door, always waiting. A time when growing up was part of a hazy someday.

"Are you with us?"

"What?" My head was resting gently against the window of the car, my eyes unfocused gently upon the vibrant blue of the sky. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm here."

"What did I just say?"

I did not remember. Another part of me heard it, but I was not there. I wasn't in the car with them, flying down back roads, sharing stories. I was in another time; another world. A world wherein concerns lay mostly within the acquisition of rose petals and cinnamon. I don't know how long he'd been talking, but I'd relived a good portion of my childhood in that time.

Daydream, I suspect, is the essence of faerie in my life. An entire world wherein time passes differently, without the aid of sleep. A world in which there is little regard for continuity and even my past is susceptible to a sudden change reached by way of what if. A world with magic and wonder and infinite possibility.

Surely I'm not the only one with a distinct inability to pay attention? I lose myself in my mind at the least provocation, and if I have a pen in hand, so much the better. That way I can act as narrator to the world of what it is I see. Think not cogito, ergo sum. Rather, I think, therefore I am in faerie.