What's Your Pinball

If I told what it takes
to reach the highest high,
You'd laugh and say "nothings that simple."

 Pete Townsend

In 1969, more than a decade before Mihály Csíkszentmihályi's experiments on Flow, Pete Townsend and the Who explained the phenomena quite accurate in their rock opera Tommy. Frightened and abused into a catatonic state, the apparently "deaf, dumb and blind kid sure plays a mean pinball." The enlightened state induced by the game sets Tommy free.

He stands like a statue,
Becomes part of the machine.
Feeling all the bumpers
Always playing clean.
He plays by intuition,
The digit counters fall.
That deaf dumb and blind kid,
Sure plays a mean pinball!

He ain't got no distractions
Can't hear those buzzers and bells.
Don't see no lights a flashing,
Plays by sense of smell.
Always gets a replay,
Never tilts at all.
That deaf dumb and blind kid
Sure plays a mean pinball!

Whether you call it "flow", "in the zone", or "in the groove", all of us have been so absorbed with an activity that nothing else seems to matter. This feeling of total involvement, when ego falls away and time flies, brings a sense of elation unlike any other.

For Tommy, that sense of elation came from playing pinball. For others it might be playing golf, skiing, building a website, writing a blog post, quilting, playing the guitar or questing in Worlds of Warcraft.

To reach the flow state, there must be a balance between the challenge of the task and the skill of the individual. The skill level and challenge level must be matched and high.

When do you feel the joy of total concentration?  What's your Pinball?


I'm free
I'm free
And freedom tastes of reality
I'm free
I'm free
And I'm waiting for you to follow me


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 Creating Happiness

Camera Glasses

You Are What you Tweet

Creating Happiness

We can create many things.  Our own happiness is one of the most important.

Many people feel that happiness is something that just happens.  They believe that they are happy when good things happens and unhappy when bad things happen. This fatalistic belief is not consistent with the actual scientific evidence.

Philosophers throughout the centuries and scientific researchers over the last forty years declare that happiness is not the result of what happens to us. Happiness depends upon our interpretation of what happens to us. Each of us control our own happiness by the way we approach everyday experiences.

Groundbreaking research by Hungarian Psychology Professor Mihaly Csiksentmihalyi discovered that people report being most happy when they are engaged in an activity where their body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. For many people, this happens most often at work. Csiksentmihalyi calls this experience “Flow” and explores it in detail in his book Flow, The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

Flow can be experienced in many activities; work, sports, music, art, cooking. Csiksentmihalyi found that every flow experience “provided a sense of discovery, a creative feeling of transporting a person into a new reality. It pushed the person to higher levels of performance and led to previously undreamed-of states of consciousness. In short, it transformed the self by making it more complex.”

Two things that can prevent flow are boredom and anxiety. It your activity is too easy, it won’t keep you engaged and happy.  If your activity is too difficult, anxiety will keep you from becoming engaged and happy. The key is to find an interesting activity that is moderately difficult and continue to increase the difficulty as your skills develop.

When you reach a state of flow, all other concerns melt away along with any sense of the passage of time. It really is the journey, not the destination that matters.

When are you happiest?

Not Too Hard - Not Too Easy

For the true artist, the work is not too hard.  The project was selected because it requires the talents, skills and experience of the artist. The artist carefully selects the right tools and team members and jumps in with energy and enthusiasm. Concentration and engagement erases all consciousness of time. Challenges arise and are resolved. Soon the work and the artist are completed.

For the true artist, the work is not too easy. The artist approaches every project as if it were the first. What new tools or techniques could add uniqueness and encourage engagement? The artist stretches beyond the traditional limitations to explore new possibilities. The emotions are touched in a way that is both timely and timeless. When the work is complete, both the art and the artist have grown.

True artists exist in every field, not just the arts. Whatever you do, do it as an artist!

Is your work too hard?  

Is your work too easy?




The paragraphs above were written and scheduled to be published before we lost Steve Jobs. Steve was the ultimate artist. While I am certain that he worked extremely hard, he made it all look easy. 

Camera Glasses

Acts of creation require perception.  They also change our perception.

Photography is one of my creative hobbies. When I take vacations or go on weekend trips, I like to take a 3D camera and capture images that are attractive and artistic.  The pictures from our trips to St. Paul, Minnesota and Washington DC have been posted on this site earlier this year.

When I have a camera in my hands, I see the world differently.  It’s like putting on a pair of glasses that make everything seem sharper and more vibrant. The camera transforms me from a passive observer to an active participant in the beautiful world that surrounds me. I can see how the tree in the foreground frames the tugboat on the river and how the railway bridge in the background provides context.

The transformation is mostly unconscious. The individual books, articles I have read on composition and lighting are forgotten in the moment of creation, but they influence my creative choices. Experience makes the camera feel comfortable in my hands and allows me to capture the moment effortlessly. Photography becomes a flow experience that freezes time and creates an image to preserve and share.

What art form do you practice?  How does it change your perception of the world?

The Stephenson II on the Missouri River at Glasgow