And that was the beginning. And then it turned out that surgeons that we studied surgeons, they say that, "oh-- I never took a vacation the first two decades of my work or the first decade of my work. I stayed busy, but then my wife told me we have to go really to spend the summer or winter a few weeks in Mexico and then we go there and go to the beach and after a week I was so crazy bored, reading books on the beach, that I had to go to the local hospital and volunteer to do surgery there, for nothing because -- and that then was okay. " So, again, here not just the artist, but the surgeon, and then you find the brick-layers, some brick-layers, some assembly line workers also get to love what they are doing because by doing it they get this feeling of complete immersion engagement with what they are doing; which otherwise they don't experience when they are simply watching TV, or they are talking to friends or whatever.
But when you are actually doing something that requires your energy and your attention and your complete immersion in what you are doing, that feels very good. And probably evolutionarily that makes a lot of sense. That why -- if getting things done well and getting your challenges is important for survival, it makes sense that you end up developing a feeling of positive experience doing it, just as if sex is important for the reproduction of the species, it is kind of important to enjoy sex. Otherwise people wouldn't do it and would not have children and we wouldn't be around as a species. Same thing with food. I mean, if you consistently forgot to eat because it does not -- you do not really care for eating and you end up weakened, or sickly and then not regularly eating and so forth.
So, essentially I think flow is an adaptive mechanism that helps a species survive and it is something that when we experience we want to repeat and, of course, after repeating the same thing over and over, unless you make it more complex, you lose that sense of focus because you have automated yourself to doing it, and that is why people on the assembly line have a hard time. But even there people can begin to develop things, their motions in new ways. For instance, most assembly line workers who enjoy doing that do it more like a sportsman who is trying to -- an athlete who is trying to perfect his high jump or the broad jump or whatever and do over and over, but every time hoping to get a few tenths of an inch farther and as he does that he gets feedback he says "oh okay, so if I jump this way I will get even further and so forth." And you do it over and over and still trying to beat your own records and -- or other people's records and that is how most assembly line workers who really love what they are doing.-- they kind of decide that they want to do it faster, better, with less effort, or some other way that doesn't show to the outside eye you know, but they feel that they are doing something which is challenging and they have to try to do their best at doing it. And so it is a very -- I think this is not a romantic notion of somehow transcending -- it is transcending, but it is transcending in a way that is pretty rational, because it means that you transcend by developing skills which may be very material or mechanical skills, or it could be skills that are intellectual or esthetic, or spiritual, I mean spirituality is certainly another form of feeling closer by ignoring the everyday or the kind of notion , the routines or obligations of everyday life and trying to connect to it something greater and not present to the senses, but -- and so that is also a kind of a struggle to achieve a goal where you"
Rob: But let us talk about that for a minute; that feeling of connecting to something greater. Talk about that.
MC: Yeah, well that is a form of -- in a sense, all of flow is about connecting to getting better, to reach the limits of your capacity and that can be by jumping higher or by doing your job faster or something, but that also is a transcending of your previous limits. But then there are people who say "well is that all there is or is there something beyond what I can experience, beyond what I can see," and then they develop skills to achieve the sensitivity that will make them get in touch with things that are not obvious, or evident, or even you know, observable or meaningful to other people. And whether this is all kind of a construction -- or actually -- by construction I mean something that you imagine and you feel, but it doesn't have a reality outside of your own brain, so to speak. Or whether it's actually connecting with something that is outside of your brain and that you have been able to connect with because of the attention that you have invested in trying to establish this connection.
I mean I am not one to deny that it is possible that there is an external force or being to which we connect; I can't deny that, but I could suggest that there are -- that it could be that you get the same kind of experience by simply saying "oh, I think I sense something outside or there must be something out that is enveloping all of us and that makes it possible for life to exist and so forth."
Rob: That sounds religious. Or spiritual.
MC: Yeah, yeah I mean, what I'm saying is that spiritual can be an inner construction of our own experience and imagination and sensitivity. It could be that or it could be an actual connection with some force that is outside of us and I can't tell which of these it is, but it is definitely the kind of inner spirituality is definitely an important part of what one can cultivate, what one can achieve and when you achieve it, it gives you a sense of flow.
Rob: A sense of love did you say?
MC: Sorry?
Rob: You said sense of flow. I thought you said love. Does love fit into -- I heard you wrong and I thought I heard you say love, but maybe that is a good question. Does love fit into this? Does love fit in with flow?
MC: Yeah, I said flow, but it is true that love is a way of achieving -- I mean, first of all, for instance, if you look at people who have been going around the world studying flow report that, at least for women, the most common flow experience occurs when they take care of their children, and take care both physically but even more by making them feel happy when they are sad, when they are telling them stories that could be useful to them, when they are experiencing things together, and this, most of this you would call love, you know, and it is -- we could call it love or the addition of these different ways of being with a child and experiencing true and with another human being, I mean that is very flow producing.
Rob: How about oxytocin or endorphins? Is there a connection between oxytocin or endorphins and flow?
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