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.
Derek I feel like you got right up to the edge of making the point around AI and work but never jumped in. IMO the scariest thing about AI is how it threatens to make work frictionless or obviate the need to do hard work at all, thereby making everything feel rather pointless.
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 agree, flow comes from working hard on something you care about. In some senses it is like sleep, where the harder you try to induce it, the farther away from it you become.
“But when you come out of them, you are left with the sobering reality that your time could have been better spent.”
I'm curious if researchers are studying this feedback loop -- i.e., if some people have that "sobering reality" after a scrolling session, how does it affect their likelihood of doing it again?
I'm in my late 50s, and I remember an early experience with "shitty flow" after playing early arcade games like Pac-Man and Space Invaders. My friends and I would play for an hour or more until we ran out of quarters. It was all a rush and time flew by, but as a smart, curious kid, I remember this awful hangover afterwards, like I'd eaten a half-dozen candy bars in one sitting. I never got into more advanced video games for that reason -- I preferred reading, drumming, and playing basketball.
As a child, I went to 10 schools in 12 years (non-military), a struggle that had a profound effect on me and my personality which I considered a negative for most of my life. However, in recent years I’ve reevaluated that position and wonder if it wasn’t indeed a positive? I went from a painfully shy, awkward child to a highly adaptable chameleon able to integrate into just about any people group. Much like the village moving people, my world was upended every school year (sometimes mid-year), forcing me to make new friends, find new paths, and adapt to new cultures.
Fantastic article, thank you for taking the time to create it.
I think Zhuangzi got a lot of this right, and I think it's clear that it's misguided to hack your way to "the Way"—uh, puns intended. Cook Ding clearly trained himself for a long time before getting into what we would call flow state.
Just want to say, Derek, this is exactly what I came to your substack for. I really enjoy "Plain English" and it's a great format for interviews. Transcripts of those interviews are fine, but this format better serves your essays, interpreting the interviews and research you've done. I don't want to discourage you at all because I think you are a powerful, positive voice in this age; just sharing my opinion on how you might best project that voice.
Great piece. Read Flow back when it first came out in the early 1990s, and it's one of the books that has had the most impact on how I think about the world.
I couldn’t help thinking of Screwtape #12 by C S Lewis; “All the healthy and outgoing activities which we [the devils] want him avoid can be inhibited and NOTHING given in return, so that at last he may say, as one of my own patients said on his arrival down here [in hell], ‘I now see that I spent most of my life in doing NEITHER what I ought nor what I liked.’”
"individuals often rely on external structures to encourage them to seek out activities that make life more rich"
And this is one major reason why there are wars. Young men, especially seek out violence because it makes their lives more rich. It's why there is no negotiation with Iran. No negotiated settlement will give those Iranians in their armies the same sense of meaning. And without that meaning, they are nothing.
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.
Derek I feel like you got right up to the edge of making the point around AI and work but never jumped in. IMO the scariest thing about AI is how it threatens to make work frictionless or obviate the need to do hard work at all, thereby making everything feel rather pointless.
How to be happy in one easy lesson. Here it is
1. Don't try to make yourself happy...instead make it your life goal to have the courage of responsibility to make other people happy.
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 agree, flow comes from working hard on something you care about. In some senses it is like sleep, where the harder you try to induce it, the farther away from it you become.
I just paid for a subscription. This is a great synthesis.
Thanks for the interesting piece, Derek.
“But when you come out of them, you are left with the sobering reality that your time could have been better spent.”
I'm curious if researchers are studying this feedback loop -- i.e., if some people have that "sobering reality" after a scrolling session, how does it affect their likelihood of doing it again?
I'm in my late 50s, and I remember an early experience with "shitty flow" after playing early arcade games like Pac-Man and Space Invaders. My friends and I would play for an hour or more until we ran out of quarters. It was all a rush and time flew by, but as a smart, curious kid, I remember this awful hangover afterwards, like I'd eaten a half-dozen candy bars in one sitting. I never got into more advanced video games for that reason -- I preferred reading, drumming, and playing basketball.
This really struck a chord with me.
As a child, I went to 10 schools in 12 years (non-military), a struggle that had a profound effect on me and my personality which I considered a negative for most of my life. However, in recent years I’ve reevaluated that position and wonder if it wasn’t indeed a positive? I went from a painfully shy, awkward child to a highly adaptable chameleon able to integrate into just about any people group. Much like the village moving people, my world was upended every school year (sometimes mid-year), forcing me to make new friends, find new paths, and adapt to new cultures.
Fantastic article, thank you for taking the time to create it.
I think ‘zombie flow’ is my new favorite phrase. Overall, this article really resonated with me and makes a lot of sense.
Please keep writing and reporting on this.
I'm not the first to see a connection between the concept of flow and some of the stories in Zhuangzi (the Cook Ding passage, for example https://thedewdrop.org/2020/05/18/the-dexterous-butcher-zhuangzi/).
I think Zhuangzi got a lot of this right, and I think it's clear that it's misguided to hack your way to "the Way"—uh, puns intended. Cook Ding clearly trained himself for a long time before getting into what we would call flow state.
Time to re-read "Shop Class as Soulcraft"
Just want to say, Derek, this is exactly what I came to your substack for. I really enjoy "Plain English" and it's a great format for interviews. Transcripts of those interviews are fine, but this format better serves your essays, interpreting the interviews and research you've done. I don't want to discourage you at all because I think you are a powerful, positive voice in this age; just sharing my opinion on how you might best project that voice.
Great piece. Read Flow back when it first came out in the early 1990s, and it's one of the books that has had the most impact on how I think about the world.
This essay is a great companion to your recent conversation about religion, as you overtly touch on.
Zombie flow is a good name!
I couldn’t help thinking of Screwtape #12 by C S Lewis; “All the healthy and outgoing activities which we [the devils] want him avoid can be inhibited and NOTHING given in return, so that at last he may say, as one of my own patients said on his arrival down here [in hell], ‘I now see that I spent most of my life in doing NEITHER what I ought nor what I liked.’”
Need a leisure ethic https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/by-theory-possessed/articles/toward-a-leisure-ethic
"individuals often rely on external structures to encourage them to seek out activities that make life more rich"
And this is one major reason why there are wars. Young men, especially seek out violence because it makes their lives more rich. It's why there is no negotiation with Iran. No negotiated settlement will give those Iranians in their armies the same sense of meaning. And without that meaning, they are nothing.