#3: Flow, Languish and everything in between
Thoughts on entering the optimal zone, and the limbo of languish
Hi friends,
Here’s hoping this newsletter finds you in much better shape than the state of current affairs this week.
As mentioned last week, I will be talking about the concept of flow this time. I've always noticed when I was "in the zone” before, but never really gave much thought to the whole phenomenon. A few years ago, however, I read Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, and realized there was a word for that phenomenon: flow.
He defines flow as
“The state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”
The book goes into great detail about flow, and describes its 8 characteristics:
Complete concentration on the task
Clarity of goals and immediate feedback
Transformation of time (speeding up/slowing down)
Intrinsically rewarding
Effortlessness and ease
A balance between challenge and skills
Actions and awareness are merged, losing self-conscious rumination
A feeling of control over the task
What I was most interested in, however, and what I want to talk about in this edition, is the quadrant of flow diagram he talked about, shown in the image below
As he says in the book,
“Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person’s capacity to act.”
In the image above, he cites the example of a person, A, who is learning to play tennis at 4 different points of time.
A1: When he first starts playing, he has practically no skills and is just learning the ropes of the game. Trying to hit the ball over the net, learning the correct stance, how to toss the ball for a proper serve etc. And although this isn't particularly difficult, he is likely to enjoy it and enter the state of flow because it is the perfect balance between the game's difficulty and his level of skill
A2: After a point he will master the basics and realize there are much harder challenges than lobbing the ball over the net. Here he would start to feel boredom as he is outside the zone of flow and his skill level has progressed beyond the difficulty level
A3: To counter that, he might start playing with a partner at a particular skill level to increase the difficulty. If the partner is much more skilled, however, he would start to feel anxious and be out of the zone of flow because there is a mismatch between the skill and difficulty level again
A4: To exit the zones of anxiety and boredom, he will be motivated to re-enter the zone of flow, and he can do that by setting himself a new goal that matches his skills—for instance, to beat an opponent just a little more advanced than he is. This provides enough of a challenge for him and is still commensurate with his skill level to place him back in the zone of flow
Mihaly uses this diagram to illustrate his following point:
"It is this dynamic feature that explains why flow activities lead to growth and discovery. One cannot enjoy doing the same thing at the same level for long. We grow either bored or frustrated; and then the desire to enjoy ourselves again pushes us to stretch our skills, or to discover new opportunities for using them."
Earlier this week, I came across another interpretation of flow while reading Edith Zimmerman’s newsletter, Drawing Links:
This definition of flow as “the opposite of languish” seemed to really stick with me. It's from a recent article in the New York Times which talks about the phenomenon of languishing, and how it seems to be a common emotion among most people during the pandemic (I know I've felt it in heaps!)
“It wasn’t burnout — we still had energy. It wasn’t depression — we didn’t feel hopeless. We just felt somewhat joyless and aimless. It turns out there’s a name for that: languishing.”
It also talks about how flow is an antidote to languishing. And both, the article and Mihaly, describe the effects of flow as a state where one's sense of time, place and self melts away. It is doing something for the sake of doing it and being completely immersed in the activity.
Things That Enabled Flow For Me This Week:
Drawing: It's always the most difficult thing for me to begin a new piece, and the state of flow doesn't necessarily come with finishing a piece or thinking about what it's going to be, but when I'm right in the middle of the process, when I'm colouring a particular shape and adding patterns or textures to it. It is the act of moving the pen, performing those repetitive strokes and motions that usually enable the flow state. I am almost mildly disappointed when I finish a particular section because I want to stay in that zone a bit longer but now I have to think about the next step.
Video-games: When you think about it, video-games are perfectly designed to induce the condition of flow and keep you in there for long periods of time. The constant feedback loop along with adjustable difficulty makes sure that you are rarely, if ever, anxious or bored by a game. This week I decided to go back to single-player games after a long period of online, multiplayer. It was super calming. I played Undertale, Stardew Valley (reject modernity (online multiplayer), embrace tradition (farming simulators)), and a bit of Witcher 3.
On a side-note, I found out about Steam Link last week which was an absolute game-changer. I can now play these games directly on my iPad which is great because most of the times I just want to lie in bed and game a bit instead of having to sit upright in a chair after doing that all day
Work: Work itself is a ripe field for inducing flow. Of course there are multiple aspects that need to align for that to happen, such as a manageable deadline, a not-too-high degree of difficulty, uninterrupted time, and lack of context switching. Focusing on a single task without having a bunch of meetings bombarded in is the ideal scenario
Links of the Week:
There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing: The New York Times article I referenced above is a great read, and not just for its section on flow
Drawing Links: Edith Zimmerman's wonderful newsletter (slice-of-life comics about running, relationships, knitting, nature) which is like a hit of dopamine for me every time it hits my inbox
Crying in H Mart: A Memoir: Michelle Zauner, singer-songwriter of Japanese Breakfast fame wrote a memoir I'm excited to read but will have to wait till August because that's when the Kindle version comes out (ugh!)
These Friends Write a Haiku Every Day During the Pandemic: Writing haikus as a form of staying in touch (this seems like such a lovely idea and I would love to try it out. Feel free to reply to this newsletter if you would too)
Posts of the Week:
Thanks for reading!
Raef