maupuia calling

It’s all 37 Signals fault. They wrote a post about flow. I’m interested in this as flow is an elusive state for me. Especially at work. So I read the post, and in particular this link from it about getting into flow.

This second post was like a revelation for me. Finally I knew what I needed to get into flow.

A pair of noise-cancelling headphones.

Nothing else would work quite so well as noise-cancelling headphones. I knew this in my very bones. Noise-cancelling headphone would enable me to get into flow, would enable me to be more productive, would increase the pleasure I get from a job well done.

Noise-cancelling headphones. Just the saying that made me feel better.

Google is my friend and showed me this blog entry. Comments 2 and 4 lead me to the wonder of Etymotic headphones. I did some further research on other headphones - active noise cancelling vs the passive cancelling of Etymotic - but my heart wasn’t in it. I knew the 6i Isolator Earphones were what I needed.

So, a few hours and a trip to ebay (where I didn’t even bid, just hit that “buy now” button) and I’m (nearly) the proud owner of a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. I just need to finalise shipping details.

I also feel good that during the whole scenario I was putting “The paradox of choice” into practice. I satisficed my ass off and it felt good.

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This afternoon I was feeling bloated, lazy and tired. So I took myself and my Ipod off for what turned into a 90 min walk. (Note to those following at home: apparently one should not use noise-cancelling headphone while walking because a) you don’t hear any outside sounds so cars could easily run you down, b) you *do* hear sounds like your hearts beating and the cord rubbing across your chest and this is just plain annoying. I shall let you know in due course).

It was wonderful. I found this old disused road road leading down from the top of Mt Crawford. It wound down the hill, through trees and fields to the William Massey Memorial. There were no cars, no people, just me walking, listening to Neil Young. (”On the beach” which is stunningly wonderful. The second side, in particular, is as good as anything, anyone, ever, has done. So there!).

We’ve lived at our house for over 10 years now, and although I’ve suspected that this road lead where it did, I’d never gone to find out. Now I have, I think it’ll be a wonderful place to go with the kids and Debbie.

I walked back along the waterfront and home via the Maupuia walkway. 90 mins after starting out I was home. I’d lost track of home. I’d been in the flow.

It was most noticeable eating dinner tonight. No loud background noise from the corner of the living room. We could all hear each other talk. And we actually did talk.

We took the tv away today. It’s sitting down here in my office, on the floor, unplugged, gray, lifeless and dull.

It’s not that I really object on a moral or philosophical level to tv. And in fact it’s going to be hard for me not being able to watch basketball and the odd programme I like. But we’d reached a stage where it was on all day. The kids would turn it on first thing in the morning, Josh sitting cross-legged on the floor entranced, and Matt slumped on the couch, barking at us to get him breakfast. Supposedly we had a policy of no tv during dinner. Too many tired, stressed nights put paid to that.

Ultimately, we used the tv as a babysitter. Allowing us a few moments - although, often, it would be much longer - of peace. A few moments of the kids not making demands on us. But it really was a cheap fix. It created more problems than it ever could solve.

The kids have progressvely been getting more angry and irritable. More passive. More insistent on tv’s privileged place in the order of their lives. A vicious cycle where that attitude manifested itself in increased bad behaviour towards each other and towards us, leading us to use tv more and more as a pacifier.

So I decided yesterday morning, after a particularly stressful time getting Matthew out the door and off to school, that just maybe not having tv would help. And today it’s gone.

I sold it to Matt that without tv we’d be able to spend more time with him and Josh. Being without a tv is going to be hardest on Deb and I. It’s no longer going to be there as an easy way to occupy the kids. Still, I have a suspicion that the problems of our tv-free-zone are going to be nicer problems than the ones we’ve been worrying about of late.

I think Kathy would be pleased though!

So I vacilate. Between wanting to blaze with fire and passion and actually make all these ideas I have happen, and sitting here, or there, struck mute and motionless and overwhelmed by all I have to do. Sitting here playing, of all things, online poker.

It is, of course, an ongoing thing. Something just above mediocrity snatched from the jaws of achievement.

I don’t know why. Afraid to succeed sound just too trite, but there’s an element of that. Don’t just do something, cos it has to be, you know, really really good, and it’s never really really good in the act of starting. I mean how could it be - it’s just a start.

Also, and this post is a prime example, an inability to actually concentrate on a single thing. It’s a post-modern, web-enabled and 2.0 thing. A not entirely welcome mash-up of distractions, siren-calling to me with the promise of something just a little more appealing than what I’m currently doing.

Occasionally though, something so godamm beautiful distracts you that it knocks mere earth-bound concerns from your mind.

And leaves you, eventually, able to finish at least this. And leaves you with the sense of someone so full and bursting - words, music, trumpets and static, tumbling and pushing and overunning each other - with whatever it is they can’t keep inside any longer. And leaves you with the sense of possibilities able to be rendered full and alive.