Finding "The Zone"

My brothers are very far apart in their fields of talent, but there is a surprising common denominator with them. One's an artist, one's a mechanic. They both apply their gift through their hands, but their processes are very different: one creates while the other analyzes and troubleshoots. Both are very talented in their craft, though they each possess a very different set of skills. However, when they are performing at the height of their powers, they are very much the same. They will get this look on their face that our current language cannot explain, and I know at that very moment, they are in "the Zone."   

I don't claim to have superpowers (though if I did, I would not reveal them to the public), but I do have an uncanny sense of vision. Not sight, which is bad in my case, but vision. I can see when someone is so deep into a process that they are outside their sense of self and are in "the Zone." When my brother (it doesn't matter which one) gets into a project, if he is working without distraction, I can see him connecting to it in a way that defies normal sight. The intensity in the area rises, the air calms, and for that moment I can sense they are in that space. To them, my presence is nothing more than, as sung by Pink Floyd, "a distant ship, smoke on the horizon." They have entered the Zone where they are, for lack of a better term, at one with their project. Their mind is processing and anticipating, seeing things on a level I can't comprehend, but I watch them with my special vision, and allow myself to feel a certain sense of awe.

Now, I am not one to brag, but I happen to know what it's like to be in the Zone as well. More to the point, I know how to get there as a writer. Kind of.

I could never tell you when I am in the Zone - not in the moment anyway. If you grab my head while I am "there" and turn me to face you and ask why I'm not answering you, I would say, "Sorry, I was in the Zone," but I probably never heard you talk, and I am likely only sorry that you interrupted me. In writing, as I assume it is with other skills, entering the Zone is exiting the world of personal hang-ups, of social media and deadlines, and existing in the sole pursuit of that particular craft. Your mind, your eyes, your fingers, are nothing more than functions of writing. It's like going one-hundred miles per hour yet feeling like sitting still. It's amazing. It's rare. And it's a practice that's very much deliberately achievable.

How do you get there? Obviously, practice. However, some things develop your discipline faster. For example: If you give yourself a dedicated time, place, and ritual for writing, don't let it get disrupted and don't interfere with the patterns. Patterns make our process flow easier, so be brutally consistent. Also, give yourself opportunities to write about things you are totally passionate about - noting that passion should be something you can engage deeply about, and not just things that trigger you. Sometimes, writing about intensely emotional things such as politics, religion, personal trauma and tragedy, and so on can keep so much of the outside world sparking off in our mind that we don't fully move into our writing mind. Write about those things that, when you think about them deeply, you fade from the world. It might sound like daydreaming, but when we get lost in thought there's a reason. We disconnect from the outside world because we are thinking about something close to our core being. Writing about those things can draw us closer to that inner space and the Zone.

And, not that this has to be said, but never try and ask yourself, "Am I in the Zone?" If you can ask that, you aren't. If you're almost there, you aren't anymore. The Zone is a place of being the moment, not questioning or challenging, neither wanting nor regretting, but just being. If this sounds strangely like meditation, well, in many ways it is, and there are a lot of parallels. But for now let's just say that you will discover many amazing things about yourself when you are in the Zone, but you won't realize them until after the fact. However, you will know when you have been there, and you will have a better idea how to go there again. And the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Kind of like meditation.