Flow

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Flow
/fləʊ/ (n.)

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.

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