This concept really makes sense to me. As a tiny example, I just got back from a vacation overseas when I was almost entirely offline and had a great time, even just sitting on a bus or train while people watching. It wasn’t some trip of a lifetime, I was mostly free-riding on my husband’s business trip. But just being present in a less familiar place, focusing only figuring out what to do, how to get the most out of that activity, and how to get from one place to another felt like a brain/attention spa.
The fact that there are step-by-step guides to Flow on IG now says everything about the problem. Flow isn't one-size-fits-all. It's the exact opposite. It's a person knowing themselves so well that they, in the course of their own desire for growth, seek out the challenges that Flow exists inside. That's where flow happens, lives. Zombie flow (like scrolling trying to find enlightenment on Tiktok or a cure for IBS on IG for example) is just a cheap facsimile of actual Flow, where the growth is promised without any of the actual work necessary. We need to know ourselves well enough to do the very things that challenge that sense of self in order to get into Flow. It's like Flow is the liminal space between who we are and who we are working on becoming, it's that state of "working on becoming".
(Thanks for this piece Derek! I was stuck on a part of some writing for a book I've been working on - which references and was partially born from thoughts based on your A Grand Unified Theory of Cultural Stagnation podcast episode in fact - and this jostled me right into where I need to go next! And I even found mini-Flow typing this out :)
This concept really makes sense to me. As a tiny example, I just got back from a vacation overseas when I was almost entirely offline and had a great time, even just sitting on a bus or train while people watching. It wasn’t some trip of a lifetime, I was mostly free-riding on my husband’s business trip. But just being present in a less familiar place, focusing only figuring out what to do, how to get the most out of that activity, and how to get from one place to another felt like a brain/attention spa.
The fact that there are step-by-step guides to Flow on IG now says everything about the problem. Flow isn't one-size-fits-all. It's the exact opposite. It's a person knowing themselves so well that they, in the course of their own desire for growth, seek out the challenges that Flow exists inside. That's where flow happens, lives. Zombie flow (like scrolling trying to find enlightenment on Tiktok or a cure for IBS on IG for example) is just a cheap facsimile of actual Flow, where the growth is promised without any of the actual work necessary. We need to know ourselves well enough to do the very things that challenge that sense of self in order to get into Flow. It's like Flow is the liminal space between who we are and who we are working on becoming, it's that state of "working on becoming".
(Thanks for this piece Derek! I was stuck on a part of some writing for a book I've been working on - which references and was partially born from thoughts based on your A Grand Unified Theory of Cultural Stagnation podcast episode in fact - and this jostled me right into where I need to go next! And I even found mini-Flow typing this out :)
I just paid for a subscription. This is a great synthesis.
Time to re-read "Shop Class as Soulcraft"
This essay is a great companion to your recent conversation about religion, as you overtly touch on.
Zombie flow is a good name!