Yep, tying is my therapy. I have built many and varied things in my work shop and have many hobbies, but tying is my minds way of getting away. Most mornings after coffee and the paper read I go to the basement to tye a few flies. I get up every now and then from tying and look out the patio door facing the woods around my house and watch the deer and fawns eat their corn I put out about 20 feet out the door. Every now and then the squirrels try to bluff the fawns so they can steal some corn, it gets pretty intertaining at times.
This is my time of day to give thanks for the day and tye a flie that takes me back to a mountain stream or fishing some where with my 2 grown sons. I have more flies than anyone has a need for but give many to some young as well as not so young people to hopefully get their interest up as well as supplying my sons and grand kids with flies. With my health being what it is I know I will never get back to the mountains again and tying is one way for me to go in my mind. I am gratefull that I did get to go and have memories to fall back on, I have no compaints. There is decent fishing here close and some very secluded and hilly country with some fast streams in places with small mouth and rock bass as well as several lakes and ponds with all the other warm water fish. But it is just not the mountains... : (
The posts some of you have posted and the pictures and stories of the likes of John Scott and so many others are my other means of going to the mountains and I thank all who have shared there trips and stories. They take me along, and many others I'm sure.
In short, yes tying is so much more than tying if you slow down and let your self roam. I couldn't agree with you more. Maybe I should have just stuck to the short version, but I never seem to be able to do that, ask my wife.!! One other short note, the longest time I spent tying 1 fly was well over 2 hours on a #14 Adams, but I was many miles away and fished some beautyfull places while I was tying it. I remember because my wife came down to see the flies I had tied. when I showed her the almost completed fly she just smiled and said thats what I figured.
The very best to you all, Jesse

In old age walking on a trail of beauty, living again may I walk