Being completely enamored with something can bring oneself to a state in which, they, the person committing the action, feels like the thing being done. What this really means is that, one can lose their ego, or sense of self, or more simply, conscious sense of self, by being so completely absorbed in something that all else dissipates. Being aware of how it functions and when it functions is important when analyzing how anyone, after a certain skill level, is able to do what they do. It also can help explain why someone who is skilled at something, when encountering a slight change or difference in the norm, can make a silly mistake. This, “losing of self” can also be beneficial in the case that your mind, conscious thought, and inner-dialogue actively feel like they’re tearing you down. This, in a sense, is one of the best means to escapism, without literally escaping. In fact, it might be contradictory; getting away from the self, whilst also becoming unknowingly close to it. Establishing how one achieves or gets to this point can only be understood after first apprehending the differences between thinking in the context of a self and going without such thinking.
When thinking about something, and this could be anything, there tends to be some important characteristics. Not all think the same way, but generally, people will think in an inner-monologue. It will speak, in the voice of the person, usually, but it doesn’t have to be that voice, but nonetheless, it talks the thoughts. Thoughts, in this fashion, are made up of words. Thinking about what has to be done today, tomorrow, next week, the needs or wants of the particular individual, and just about anything else that can be conjured up in words. Of course, there can be dialogues, in which more than one voice speaks, or visuals, where in the mind, a visual is displayed relating to or created from a thought with or without the use of words. What’s all the more important, however, is what kind of thoughts are had when learning something. Establishing how the mind is thinking and acting when in a state of learning can highlight the differences in how that same mind works when in a state of absence; or really, when automatic well-trained systems take over.
Learning highlights the capability to take in information and utilize it for specific purposes, whether the purposes stay within the mind or are externalized via physical means. Learning how to multiply can be understood through an understanding of addition, and addition can be visualized in the same ways multiplication can, but by having the basis of addition, it is much easier to understand multiplication. The ways addition can be visualized are simple: things being brought together and assigning a label to the number of things present, and that number is increased when the number of things also increases. Once understanding that visually, with objects, for example, one can then use that understanding and further abstract it simply by using numbers. Once this has been learned, when the question, “How many?” is asked, it becomes simple to add up, because it isn’t necessary to deduce what it means to add, how to do it, and understanding how it can be done: it is simply done.
When something is simply done, it demonstrates an ability to utilize a concept, idea, or object. These play together, but the idea is essentially that one showcases their ability in how much they have to actively think about what it is they are doing in the present or going to do in the future. When there is little to no thinking required from the individual; this showcases experience and ability. However, when there is a large amount of thinking, it showcases less experience and ability. This is something that is ever-growing. Even someone who is extremely experienced in something will still have to face something new, and in that situation, they have to assess the new situation with the “learning” mind equipped. Essentially meaning; the inner-monologue, or however the person might think, comes back online, where previously, it was quiet or completely absent.
When thought is required, conscious thought to do something, whether by request from yourself or an outsider, there is a lack of experience. Sure, it might be present after some experience, but until it becomes autonomic, there isn’t 100% fluency in whatever that task is. When perceiving someone else, whether you request or they request something, if there is a moment of thinking, it’s unlikely they have done the thing before, or they haven’t done it all that much. If they don’t have to think, and they just kind of, “do,” then there is quite a bit of experience present. This scope also aligns with complexity. If the task becomes more complex, more thinking is required, but nonetheless, if the individual already has experience in the complex task, then it would be relatively instantaneous. However, even if there is a slight augmentation to that relatively complex task, it might cause error or confusion by the individual completing the task, simply because, it has now become something different. Even in this case, if the individual has experience with altering or augmenting existing tasks, it might be not too much effort for them, but indeed, it all depends on the experience and knowledge of the individual.
With all this in mind, it’s easy to see how one can lose that conscious mind while completing a task they have a lot of experience in. In fact, that consciousness, the thinking mind, could be impairing to the task, which could potentially cause error. The way an individual reaches the point of being able to do something without having to think about each individual part, as one might with learning, is through experience, knowledge, and training. Absentness of that thinking mind could be potentially something desirable for those who want to avoid actively thinking. Undeniably, they will have to spend some time thinking, because it is a prerequisite to actually attaining a lack of the conscious mind. However, when that point is reached, they can sit there, doing the thing, without having to think about what is specifically being done; they just do it.
Some aren’t so fortunate with how their conscious mind acts, and so having a means to dull it, or negate it completely, can be quite freeing. Even if content with the consciousness, inner-monologue, or dialogue, it can be quite nice to let that go for a moment. Arguably, this is what meditation is. Yes, the mind can be actively thinking during meditation, if that’s what you desire, or you could actively try to dull or avoid the thinking mind, but another path that’s available is allowing it to speak until it has nothing else to say. There might be a lot that the mind wants to say but it can’t quite get it out because of a variety of reasons, but whatever the reason is, meditation can enable those thoughts to get out. In a state of action, doing something, and having the monologue dulled; there isn’t necessarily a time for the mind to start showing up and saying things. It can happen, and it will happen, but depending on the level of focus, it might be more difficult for that to randomly occur. In a state of deliberate meditation, there is that opportunity; there is nothing to lose, it is a time and place for that motion, and a time for the mind to speak, and eventually, hopefully anyway, quiet back down.
If the mind is quiet, then arguably, “you,” the “I” within the mind, has now run away or escaped, right? Well, sort of. Maybe that voice that speaks quiets down, but when doing something, completing a task, or just doing something; that “self” has not run away, but instead, integrated itself into the action. Probably the best and most well-known example of this is music. The action of playing an instrument can allow for some thinking, but after a certain point, or more particularly, a certain speed, this isn’t quite as possible. Actions need to be automatic so they can be used; once you don’t have to think about it, it then becomes usable. To be particular, in the case of instrumentation anyway, improvision is quite close to what this exactly is.
To improvise is to play something without thinking about it beforehand. Just sitting down to play an instrument, and, quite simply; playing. After pressing a note down, any note, a choice has been made and based on all the experience in the past, more choices can be made. Some choices might not be great, but some choices might be quite good. This is, in some sense, a demonstration or exemplification of the person via the means, or the tool, of an instrument. Through practice, hours of practice, many, many, many, hours, one can utilize their tool, and then feel through it. They don’t need to actively think about what it is they’re going to play, or what they want to play, they well, just play it. Without a doubt, this applies to other forms of creation, such as the artist who sits down to draw, and simply starts drawing, and then continually builds on top of that. Same for the writer who sits down, writes some words, and then continues to write words on top of those words. There is a time and place for thinking about the action before it happens, there is no argument, however, how one feels, and their feelings about the actions, are quite different.
These forms of creation are done for many types of reasons, but limiting down to the quick and immediate, feeling the thing and doing it; there’s generally a simple idea behind it. It feels good. It is enjoyable, and desirable, to the person doing it. They like how it makes them feel, it might not even be that their mind has quieted down; it could be, but if needing to break down even further; it just feels nice. Perhaps it feels good to think about something, then execute it, but sometimes, that can be quite tiresome. If there is an interest to create something and think about it before it is created, a lot of time can pass before anything is actually done, depending on how much the individual desires to think about what is to be done. With these examples, creation is the main showcase, however, even in something like a video game, we can watch and be the actor of losing ourselves in the midst of the action.
In a class-based shooter, you can choose multiple characters, or classes, and each will have their own independent role. This role exists to support the team in one fashion or another, and some classes can do much of the same thing as another, but in a different way or with a specific advantage. If playing a certain class, if the perceiver and actor is immersed enough, they can, or at least hopefully can, reach a point of experiencing the class. Instead of simply being someone controlling a mouse and keyboard, they are, in one sense or another, becoming that class in which they control from said objects. They lose themselves, their ego is quieted down, and they simply do the actions that class is supposed to do. Once again, it comes down to the experience of the player; the more experienced, the easier it is to get into such a state. Outside of team-shooters, supposing an MMO or some sort of role-playing game, these ideas are only enhanced, and the game exists to utilize this part of the mind. People, just about anyone, desires to escape the tedium and boredom of life, and in a video game, this can be brought upon by becoming a character that is doing exciting, new, and fresh things. There is a transfer of ego, more or less, from the person controlling the tool to play the video game, like a mouse and keyboard, to the character on-screen, whether it is a fantasy-themed MMO or a team shooter.
This is all said because the losing of self in action is something that can be easily overlooked. An individual might not be aware of how they think themselves, or even how others, operate. Someone who knows nothing about something, who then watches someone do that something, might be completely confused how they are able to do that thing, but at the very least, they should be able to know that it is through time, effort, and practice, and in the midst of the motions, an arguably empty mind, which enables that individual to do whatever it is they’re doing. To lose that inner-monologue, or dialogue, or visual; whatever it is for you, might be desirable, and so knowing how this part of the mind functions, and being able to execute it, might be of interest for those who don’t like how their mind speaks. For whatever reason, the individual then can get farther, or in some ways, closer, to the self; their self.