Blog 5

    This week has been one of the less eventful weeks again. I mostly just practiced crochet while I watched the new Hocus Pocus movie with my husband. I have been working on the blanket for my daughter still. It has gotten quite long! The only new thing is that I am now comfortable enough with crochet that I can mostly watch a movie while crocheting, without the crochet being distracting. 

My cute little pink blanket

    When thinking of "flow," I realized that I had never felt it with crochet. The only time I ever felt flow was when I was running for high school track. As far as I know, I have never felt flow for anything other than running. It would only occur when racing. I never experienced flow while practicing, I only experienced it at meets. I found this strange because most of the locations in which I ran, were just spaces to me. I had no prior experience there, as well as no connection to these particular tracks. I did, however, have great connection to the track back at home. The track at home was a place for me. I find it strange that I experienced flow in the locations that were only spaces, but never in a place of mine.

    I have noticed that crochet is becoming easier for me. There are obviously a lot of things that I need to work on, but overall my skill is improving. I have also been noticing my stress levels start to fall more quickly when I begin crochet. Just like the man in chapter two, I feel more like myself when I am crocheting. 

    I do think that the potential for me to experience flow while crocheting is there. I think for this to happen, I need to become more comfortable with it, go outside of my comfort zone, and continue to progress in difficulty with each project. 

I personally felt strangely about the autotelic personality type. I feel as though I am very intrinsically motivated, but I am not low-anxiety. I felt as though the only characteristic I have that aligns with the autotelic personality is my intrinsic motivation. This could be a lot of the reason that I do not experience flow anymore. I think that my stress levels are too high to only care about the one task I am doing. Because of this, I think I also crave flow, I just don't know how to find it. I have highly considered taking up running again, but I remembered that I never experienced flow unless I was competing. I also feel as though if you truly have the autotelic personality, flow just comes more easily to you, whether you want it to or not. 

    I also think that if you do have a true autotelic personality, you genuinely don't care if you experience flow or not. That would defeat the whole "intrinsic motivation" side of the personality. I think people with autotelic personalities purely take part in certain occupations just to enjoy what they are doing, regardless of if they experience flow. I think those without the autotelic personality are more likely to be motivated to choose certain occupations in order to experience flow.