The Task

Let us understand, then, how we think when we're working in flow.

For those who yet do not understand this term, and cannot follow a link, "flow" is the condition of being "in the zone" ... it is becoming so immersed in what's being done that all other considerations are put aside by the mind.  Stress evaporates with worry and the awareness of physical self.  As apes, we've developed our minds to rise to a level of focus that fear, hunger, exhaustion, even pain cease to impugn our thoughts with their nagging calls.  This state, once achieved, enables us to solve problems of considerable magnitude, to "walk with the gods" — not only do the hours of time melt away, after the fact we can hardly comprehend we had the mental capacity to do what we have done.

In biological terms, it's estimated there are at least half a dozen different hormones surging through our bodies.  In effect, our being is temporarily shutting down unneeded systems while enhancing others.  So, in understanding what happens when we engage ourselves with a project that takes up our full attention, we must remember that much of what's happening is beyond our control.  We don't choose to be "in flow" ... but when we are very interested in something for its own sake, our body chemistry kicks in and clears the road so that we can genuinely think.

Whether gardening, making a chair, writing an important blog post or whatever, the mind is always far, far ahead of the action.  Hours before the gardener's fingers touch dirt, the mind is turning the soil over, deciding how it must be shaped and made obedient to the will.  Once the work begins, the eye and the touch reveal unforseen issues, and at once the mind sinks into flow, imagining a better way of fixing the roots, adjusting the depth, changing the mix — all the while wanting to do the best job possible, to achieve perfection.  From the psychology of craft:

The psychological theory of "flow" proposes that there is a tension between skill and challenge that affects our state of mind. If a task is too easy, we get bored and distracted. Too hard and we get frustrated and give up. If however, the task at hand challenges our physical skill while still being potentially doable — we can experience the "flow state" ... you can be hyperfocused on the project, lose track of time, and experience a rush of self-efficacy — "Look at this, I CAN build it!"

Locked into this hyperfocused state of mind, we become aware of everything.  As I am drawing some probably useless map of Spitsbergen, these are not just lines and colours for me, they are my choice to achieve an appearance, a harmony that is beauty, to make the shapes match a lifetime of staring at maps and reading about faraway places — of which Spitsbergen is only one.  While a viewer looks at the map and may experience a scale between indifference or admiration, my experience is a vague recollection of my spending hours once upon a time fitting together pieces of coastline, sea and land together.  I did it, obviously; but I don't closely remember doing it.  It is as though I were someone else as I did it.  The experience is odd, disjointed and utterly as though my finger reached out and found God's waiting.

And so when I said earlier that no part of my sandbox is intrinsically "better" than any other part, it is THIS experience that applies.  The project of working at my world, and all the parts of it, have been done at a level where I do not cease advancing my execution until I have reached my point of failure, as John Ruskin put it.  That execution is still advancing.

Applying myself in this manner, asking me to give more concern about the party visiting Paris or the party visiting Spitsbergen is akin to asking if I prefer my body cell 45,896,564,003,981 more than cell 45,896,564,003,982.  It is all part of a single composite whole.  There cannot be one part without the other ... and every part serves its function as it is meant to serve its function ... in an incomprehensible way that denies me any power to feel prejudiced about either.  Want to go here?  Sure.  Want to go there?  Cool.  They seem equally fascinating to me.  They were fascinating when I drew them; they've lost none of that fascination with passing time.

I believe that the act of working fully and completely on the game world — and especially if the presence  of the game world is the end goal, and NOT what the game world is used for — produces that artistic gestation we associate with giving birth.  There is a change that is wrought on the mind of the maker.  We learn what our world is and experience what it might potentially be — yet not only that.  It becomes a part of us and we a part of it.  The work, the flow that engaged us, makes the world an extension of ourselves, like an additional arm or set of memories.  Each line of river carves into the world its boats, its waterbearers, its croplands and its bearing away of soil to the sea.  Each border sets forces of power in motion, stirs the minds of occupants to thoughts of war and conquest, while building resentment for "the other" who lives on the other side.  Each city is a center of plague and culture; a refuse pile; a place of glorious endeavour; the clink of coins, the glorious odour of cooking wafting through the streets.  The initiative of drawing the world is an act of spilling out beings, rivalries, histories and germination, like pouring a gargantuan bucket of complex, pixel-sized lego upon an infinitely sized table, then happily spending decades piecing it together.

The fool who does not do this because he or she thinks it's unnecessary "for the game" deserves pity.

And not players.