If you don’t know how I feel about people who sow hate and division (like our president), you’ve obviously never read more than a post in passing. I’m not going to bother to summarize my politics or ideological leanings. I’ve left plenty of bread crumbs to follow.
I’ve written about playing the guitar. I continue to play.
The recent move cut into available time I had with my guitars. I missed the familiar rhythm I’d cultivated over the prior nine months of playing nearly every day.
We’re settling into a new place that feels right for us. We like the neighborhood and being within walking distance of an ever-evolving-and-vibrant downtown district is another perk to being in Biddeford.
I’m in week three of a new job. It’s been awhile since I actually enjoyed reporting for duty. My co-workers have been welcoming. One of my managers is a music aficionado and we share a similar interest in bands/artists, including Deer Tick. She was actually impressed with that one.
When I worked at Moscow Mutual years ago, the “mentor” I was matched with was a lousy trainer. She was narcissistic at best. I swear to this day that she purposely sabotaged my training for whatever reason. At the most basic level, she wasn’t a very nice human being.
The woman who I’ve been shadowing and who I’ve spent the lion’s share of time with in my new position has been fantastic. She makes learning fun and she regularly catches me doing things right. She is also an empathetic person of the highest order with customers, both internal and external.
Enough of work and real estate. I’m here to talk guitar yet again.
Apparently, music and playing an instrument promotes what’s known as “flow state.” This state is neurologically-based. Scientists are still learning about its mechanics. Without getting too scientific (which I rarely am), it’s a place where we are capable of leaving behind irritations, dissonance, and other negative psychological elements. Like anger and hate.
I’m not a psychologist. However, from my attempts to embrace mindfulness, I know that it’s possible to be less angry and less agitated. In a country that’s riven with anger, where many have an irrational fear of people of color, as well as a paranoid kind of politics like no other place, being able to dial down negative emotions is worth exploring.
According to Hungarian-American psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, our “best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times…The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”
It was Csikszentmihalyi who found that people achieve genuine satisfaction during a state of consciousness he refers to as “flow.” In this state they are completely absorbed in an activity, especially an activity which involves their creative abilities. During this “optimal experience” they feel “strong, alert, in effortless control, unselfconscious, and at the peak of their abilities.”
Csikszentmihalyi’s seminal work, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, was written in 1975. He’s not someone looking to cash-in on the latest “flavor of the month, or recent interest in mindfulness, either. I plan to pick it up and read it. I’m fascinated by flow state, being “in the zone” (common in sports parlance), or any other way to transcend the ordinary and often, the ugliness of the everyday. Interestingly (I think) for Patriots’ fans, Tom Brady has mastered much of what Csikszentmihalyi wrote about, yet this was years before Brady began flinging footballs on some Pop Warner field in California.
It was last fall when I got out my acoustic guitar and began trying to play for 15 to 20 minutes daily. As I began to play and learn a few simple songs, including the lyrics and singing and playing, I’d inevitably feel better after a few minutes. After a session of playing three or four songs (or more), I routinely began experiencing joy for the first time since Mark was killed.
Not only did I feel better, but playing every day (our at least five out of every seven days) began to promote improvement in my guitar-playing. The more I played, the better I played.
Wednesday morning, I picked up my electric. It wasn’t plugged into an amp. I simply began strumming a chord progression. It was a simple one, but I wrote down the chords and even added a rudimentary chorus before it was time for my commute.
Later, when I arrived home and had lunch (my shift on Wednesday was 8:00 to 1:00), all I could think about was my new “song.” I ended up playing for more than an hour. I have been working on lyrics. I should have something in another few days. Maybe I’ll even post a sound file, soon.
Additionally, I’m also working on “Interstate Love Song,” by Stone Temple Pilots. It’s always been a song I’ve had an affection for. One of my favorite online guitar instructors, Marty Schwartz, has me ¾ of the way to being able to play it, at least in a perfunctory fashion.
I’m aware of what happened last weekend. Hate and mayhem suck and cause others to grieve over losing loved ones. My wife and I know this from personal experience.
Jumping on Facebook or consuming cable news about the shootings would only make me agitated. I’ve chosen a minimalist approach to the news. Local weather in the morning, the NY Times on weekends. I’m still “in the loop.” But I’m also not angry all the time.