Friday, February 26, 2010

Day Fifty Two

Its a late one, but I made it. Today started with a visit from the students of Coro Lake Elementary. I gave three blacksmithing demonstrations, making a very cool hook each time. I was glad to see that the students were excited to learn and enjoyed their tour of the museum, the library, the smithy and the foundry. Some of the kids remembered me and it was nice to get a hug from some of them. I just love to teach and I certainly relish the chance to share my love of all things metal. The rest of the day consisted of pouring investment ( a plaster like substance use to make the heat resistant molds needed for casting objects in silver) and weighing silver in preparation for tomorrow's sterling silver pour. At the end of the day tomorrow I will have many tiny silver horses. I'm looking forward to it!

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Rilke said...

Do continue to believe that with your feeling and your work you are taking part in the greatest; the more strongly you cultivate in yourself this belief, the more will reality and the world go forth from it.

Works of Art are of an infinite loneliness.

Fame is the sum of the misunderstanding that gathers about a new name.

Nothing in the world can one imagine beforehand, not the least thing. Everything is made up of so many unique particulars that cannot be foreseen.

Everyone once, once only. Just once and no more. And we also once. Never again.

Were it possible for us to see further than our knowledge reaches, perhaps we would endure our sadnesses with greater confidence than our joys. For they are moments when something new has entered into us, something unknown.

That is the principal thing: not to remain with the dream, with the intention, with the being in the mood, but always forcibly to convert it into all things.

Flow (psychology)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the positive psychology concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields.^[1]

According to Csíkszentmihályi, flow is completely focused motivation. It is a single-minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing and learning. In flow the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand. To be caught in the ennui of depression or the agitation of anxiety is to be barred from flow. The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task.^[2]

Colloquial terms for this or similar mental states include: to be on the ball, in the zone, in the groove, or keeping your head in the game.