| Seems related to the reason Buddhism seeks to recreate the state of "Beginner's Mind". I've found that the real emotional content is in going beyond your previous experience or comfort zone, regardless of skill level. One thing I noticed after getting to the top international levels of alpine ski racing, was that listening to a novice-intermediate skier enthusiastically exclaim about a cool run or move that they had was nearly indistinguishable from the emotion and content of a fellow top racer telling of an exceptional run. The same enthusiasm, the same energy, and almost the same words, again and again. While there were of course differences in the actual details, the common denominator was always having gone outside their comfort zone and succeeding. Of course achieving this after a decade+ of intense training requires much higher speed, energies, risks, skills, etc., but it still happens very regularly, and to some degree is what we did it for; competition is a continuous deliberate effort to push beyond your comfort zone every week. But the article is right in that I'd have no clue how to achieve that again with wine/beer/food tasting, but then I'm no expert there... edit: punctuation, para breaks, clarity |