"The ZONE"

[Fishcarver]

Some composite food for thought, courtesy of my late Uncle Stan Boyanoski, the late Arthur Koestler ("The Act of Creation") and a little life experience on my part:

"When your HEAD, your HEART, and your HANDS are all in the same place, then you are in THE ZONE: that place where CREATION happens, and from which JOY flows."

Thoughtful comments/discussion/considered corollaries are welcome!

Your friend,
Jim

[peter taft]

I like that alot. Sometimes things get out of whack so to speak, your brain makes a suggestion, but your hands REFUSE to cooperate, it's all in the detail, but the eyes just can't see it ! AGE

[Texman]

Well, Peter, I am just the opposite. My eyes cooperate, but I am having joint/tendon issues in my hands, and even the typing was considerably painful. However, I have a cool doc. After trying some new meds, and stopping because I did not care for the perpetual "fog" I was in, he mentioned some OT possibilities. When I talked about my hobbies, he inquired what I did. After some pictures and explanations, I now have a Dr's Rx to build models for at least an hour a day!!!! How great is that!

And I agree, when the hand/eye/brain/heart all come together to do something, it is a most enjoyable moment.

[peter taft]

Ray. Your eye's are most certainly up to par, you model at such small scales. I can well imagine what your finger joints must be going through - to hold tiny parts in tweezers for long periods of time must play havoc. But through all this - it's your SPIRIT and WILL to keep going AGAINST the odds, that shows out in all that you have accomplished thus far - GOOD on you

[Fishcarver]

Tex: My bro KEES has diabetic issues with his hands. So far, he is still carving/painting wooden birds, and we are adapting tools to deal with them.

Talk to me if you wish!
Jim

[Hudsonduster]

I love The Zone analogy. I'm thinking, it might be different for each individual; but The Zone, as a goal - that may be very good indeed.

Years back, I taught a ship modeling workshop at a local VA center. Now, I'm by no means a medical guy, I'm a craftsman with some knack at problem-solving - and that's what I was there to do. "Okay. That didn't work. Your problem's still sitting there. Okay, what NOW?..."
What I counted on, what was affirmed, was: if someone loves the task enough, he'll find a way.
And, to me, that's The Zone.
Couple fellows with one hand worked on developing flexible clamp systems to work with (one went on to card modeling, building a beautiful DN YAMATO with his daughter, a happy-ending story in her own right). The other's now consulting with open-source software engineers on computer-interfacing and Waldoes (google "Keyglove").

It's the one-eyed guys I want to tell about here, though.
Ever try to cut something with one eye closed? Pretty quick, you're gonna take a wafer of fingertip off. It's amazing how much you count on your ranging capabilities, until you got no ranging...
These two guys each had one eye, one a little less than one eye. We spent some weeks just getting the habit of touching the blade and sighting down the cut line to make sure all's clear, or using one finger to "range" when assembling parts, so you didn't get glue smudges all over. Bulk paks of Q-tips (& Band-Aids)were all over the place.
It was up in the rigging, that these two guys (they'd taken to calling themselves "Winky & Blinky") learned a trick.
One day, I noticed Blinky bobbing his head rhythmically, as he threaded a topping-lift tackle. "What're you doing, Blink?"
"Huh? What?"
"You're nodding as you work. Did you notice?"
"...No. Oh, wow, I was. - Why?"
Turns out, he'd stumbled on what lizards have known for a few geological epochs: when you got no triangulation and thus no ability to "range" your environment, you MAKE your triangulation. Blinky was subconsciously head-bobbing to induce triangulation, and his brain was using what data it had.
And he wasn't remotely aware he was doing it.
Nature Finds A Way.
In one session flat, Blinky and Winky were into "training" sessions in head-bobbing - they started calling it "Lizard Vision." I think there're notes in the VA journals about it. Hope so.
Anyway, one built a nice Colonial pilot boat, the other a Chesapeake log canoe. All on Lizard Vision.
That's finding your Zone.

'Dust

[Art Deco]

Another term for this is "flow" or "the flow state". From Wikipedia:

Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.
(...)
According to Csikszentmihalyi, 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.
(...)
The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task although flow is also described as a deep focus on nothing but the activity – not even oneself or one's emotions.

[Texman]

Which could explain a couple of other things. I have lost about 50% vision in my right eye, all of it central vision. Periphreal is fine, but really not much central.

[Art Deco]

Originally Posted by Hudsonduster

Blinky was subconsciously head-bobbing to induce triangulation, and his brain was using what data it had.
And he wasn't remotely aware he was doing it.

That's a wonderful anecdote!

Recently I came across a cool graphics effect that perfectly corroborates "lizard vision". Antique stereoscopic images are stacked into an animated GIF file and rapidly alternated. It looks like the image is shaking, or as if you were bobbing or shaking your head while viewing the original scene. What is fascinating is that the image jumps out into 3D ... a perfect illustration of "lizard vision".

Here are a couple collections of examples:
Awesome Stereoscopic 3-D GIFs From 1930s Paris (PHOTOS)

Cool Stereoscopic Animated Gifs (30 gifs) - Izismile.com