Flow

Flow
/fləʊ/ (n.)

In which the curmudgeonly old sod puts the world to rights.

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Up on your hiking straps, that hypnotic state Hendrix would go into during Machine Gun — in the zone, immersed, focused, absorbed, involved to the point of losing awareness of time, ego and an exterior world. Awesome, but hard to do if you work in legal and compliance in a financial services organisations

Named by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in 1975

Stories and games Are bounded narratives: there is a beginning and an end, clear and defined rules and a single objective.

Is flow the process of rerendering the wicked as tame?

Art as the process of creating a new reality. More interesting to us when there are clear goals and rules. Hence reductionism.

Clarity of goal
Immediate feedback
Challenge of activity matched to your own skill
Focus... Undivided attention
Everyday frustrations are removed from attention
You are in control, but on an edge where control is possible
Your ego is switched off. You don't have the luxury of worrying what others feel about yourself.
Time is transformed. Hours get condensed into minutes. Sometimes seconds stretch into minutes