Mosquito Bits

    

     This week was a complex one. I went to my least favorite sporting store Cabela's to purchase new thread and grizzly hackle. Then came home to begin tackling my long desire of tying a mosquito. I started tying this one and realized that I was missing grizzly pattern rooster saddle. So I had to improvise with olive green. The end result looked like something out of a horror movie. 

    I have experienced the concept of flow. It happened while tying this fly because part of it required stripping the feathers. What should have been 2 minutes for me turned into 20 because I kept tearing the feather's shank. Before I knew it, the time was an hour later and I had to put my son to bed. I experience flow quite often. Usually it is in class listening to the teacher talk about interesting concepts. Aaron's class specifically puts me into a state of flow because the detail we achieve concerning the reading makes the time pass by. 

    Fly tying only seems to create flow for me when something goes awry. This usually allows me to enter that state because my mind no longer cares for what occurs around me. It instead focuses on one medial task. I would probably change my attitude toward fly tying to achieve flow on a more frequent basis.   

    I am semi-autotelic in a sense that fly tying is a stepping stone for me. I tie flies to achieve a more selfish outcome. This outcome is fishing. So the occupation of fly tying helps me achieve a state of flow. My personality will reflect choices in occupation specifically. I will not start a new occupation if that occupation is not important to me. Rather, I can say that only occupations that are relevant to me will be ones that I can see peaking my flow experiences.