At the heart of the experience of coliberation there lies another experience, one that even more directly relates to the experience described by Dr. Celia Pearce as intersubjective flow - of being in flow with other people who are also in flow.
Csikszentmihalyi explains that as we get deeper and deeper into the flow state, more and more of our capabilities are engaged, or, as I describe it in the illustration, we become more complete. To be more complete we need to be involved in a task that is complex enough to engage us completely, to engage all our attention, all our capabilities.
Sometimes, as in a well-played game, we are engaged with others who are also engaged. We are completely engaged – body, mind, senses – in flow. And so are those with whom we are playing. And (here is what makes confluence such a useful concept) we are also engaged with each other, in each other, to such a degree that we each increase the other’s engagement. The very experience of completeness becomes expanded. We go beyond ourselves.
Unlike the experience of coliberation, there are no fixed boundaries to the confluence experience. You are either in the channel, or not. The only warning you get is a sense of becoming increasingly distant – either from the community or from yourself. The problem is, you usually can’t tell which.
Once you experience confluence, you are as completely there as you can be, at one with yourself, at one with the community, at one with the game, making magic.
To achieve confluence, you first need to be in a coliberating relationship. You need to be freed from the constraints of ego and identity, and to be freeing others from being judged by anything other than their performance in the game. Once this is achieved, you are free to experience confluence. That is why you play together.
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