the.com/flow
the brain quietly editing out your ego so the work can finally happen
means A state of complete, effortless absorption in an activity, where attention, action, and time seem to merge — also, more broadly, the smooth continuous movement of anything from water to conversation.
from From Old English 'flōwan,' to flow or stream, rooted in a Proto-Germanic source and ultimately a Proto-Indo-European base meaning to swim or float — a cousin of words like 'flood' and possibly distantly related to Latin 'pluere,' to rain. The psychological sense is modern: it was named in the 1970s by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who borrowed the everyday water-word because people kept describing the feeling as being 'carried along by a current.'
- coined by
- Mihaly Csikszenthmihalyi after studying obsessed painters
- time bends
- hours vanish, seconds stretch, clocks lose all authority
- self-talk off
- the inner critic literally goes quiet
- sweet spot
- lives between boredom and panic, never elsewhere
- jazz roots
- musicians called it the pocket long before science did
gulf stream — warm ocean current carrying 30 million cubic meters of water per second along the atlantic coast
amazon river — discharges 209,000 cubic meters of water per second into the atlantic ocean
jet stream — fast-moving air current flowing west to east at 35,000 feet, reaching 250+ mph
stanley cup playoffs — nhl's 16-team elimination tournament format creating continuous momentum from april to june