The Zen like State of Flow Can Happen at Any Party, Anywhere
I don’t lose myself much these days.
Agreeing to “grow up”, “act like an adult” and “not default on personal loans” comes with the acknowledgement that there’s 1,000 things to do and you’re behind on all of them, all the time.
This is why I drink.
Actually, it’s the reason I write: to escape life by diving deep into a task I find enjoyable that absorbs all of my attention and skill.
And THEN I drink.
Now, relying on alcohol as an escape from the screeches of the conscientious mind is a time honored tradition followed by everyone from sailors to word writers to sex workers, but it will kill you.
It will kill your liver, your brain and all your relationships.
But being addicted to great parties? Just like this Andrew WK song, that will give you LIFE.
But why?
Why do I, a 2/3rds introvert with social anxiety and a lifetime of struggles with self-esteem, find myself refreshed after a thoroughly engaging night out?
Even hungover, why do I feel a sense of completeness and fulfilled purpose?
It’s called flow and the best parties have it.
The #23 of Socializing
The 2008 Ted Talk by (a man who’s name I am copy pasting) Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi based on his book (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience) is by now a well known social idea.
Similar to tipping point or moneyball, it is an idea that has outgrown its source material and become shorthand for a whole theory of human behavior that feels at once fresh and timeless, as if these phenomena always existed but we’re only now discovering them.
Flow is, per Csikszentmihalyi,
“being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”
In my experience a great party is equivalent to any state of flow you can find humankind engaging in.
You can lose yourself – your sense of time, concern, tension – in a great party the same way you can lose yourself in a good game of basketball, in writing a song, playing a card game.
My dad’s generation had model train set building
My generation’s equivalent of train set building? 8 hour sessions of Civilization.
I propose we add partying to this list.
So Now, The 10 Points Of Flow Interspersed Amongst a Party
All the great parties I’ve been to – or nights out I’ve engaged in – have one thing in common: flow.
Without being aware of it, I’ll find myself…
1. Clear goals that, while challenging, are still attainable
sliding from one conversation to another, one hug of greeting to the next,
2. Strong concentration and focused attention
from an offered beer to the line for the bathroom, never too concerned about what drink you’re on but never running out,
3. The activity is intrinsically rewarding
not getting wasted but never losing your buzz, every interaction ending smoothly as you continue from one moment to the next,
4. Feelings of serenity; a loss of self-consciousness
attention given and received, cigarettes shared, laughs everywhere and the next song is always the one you were waiting for.
5. Timelessness; a distorted sense of time; feeling so focused on the present that you lose track of time passing
After the initial warming-up to the crowd, great parties become free of self-consciousness and absolutely devoid of the nightmare scenario:
trapped on the outer ring of a group of people, shipwrecked, nervous for an opening to jump in, to spew the mouth words you thought of when the group was talking about the last thing they were talking about but which are now useless, witty comments you must swallow and die with…
…that edge of the social circle where all confidence evaporates and you try to justify your existence while desperately trying to come off as anything but desperate.
That never happens at a great party.
6. Immediate feedback
Great parties bend time and space. They introduce new friends, spark random bursts of experience,
7. Knowing that the task is doable; a balance between skill level and the challenge presented
they birth moments that catch you off guard the next day, hitting your headache out of the blue like, “Damn, I forgot I met the guy from the 8th season of Survivor last night”.
8. Feelings of personal control over the situation and the outcome
Great parties don’t stop til the next day, as you count up your encounters with friends over greasy eggs benedicts and tomato-juice vodkas.
Great parties can happen anywhere.
Some aren’t even parties.
They’re just 6 of you with nothing better to do than go bowling but somewhere in those lanes and frames you find a bucket of rum for $8, someone throws the ball backwards breaking a light ON THE CEILING and no one remembers who won.
9. Lack of awareness of physical needs
Suddenly, the night has taken over and all plans have been forgotten.
10. Complete focus on the activity itself
Tomorrow is gone in a great party, and Now – that elusive, slip-through-your-fingers-all-week thing – is fully achieved.
In a State of Flow your soul is fulfilled, free from the week you just spent 40 hours of at some job that stressed you out to the point you needed the explosion of release they call Saturday night.
Flow is your reward, your commandment and your responsibility.
It’s out there, waiting in the winds of spontaneity and text threads, paining to be experienced by you.
I implore you, dear reader, whatever your age, never, ever stop pursuing the flow of a great party.
James Baldwin: A Coda
From a documentary I watched in college but have since not been able to locate…
I think it was in Spain? Somewhere in Europe…
James Baldwin hosted an entire dinner party, up talking, drinking and socializing with people until 3 in the morning.
Only then did he sit down to write.
His friend asked him how he could write after partying all night and his response, to effect, was that he couldn’t write without it.
He needed it, he said.
The party got him into his flow and the result was the world got to experience James Baldwin.