[hackeraccount]

That reminds me of a fairly common place observation about combat pilots in world war II. Flight experience was necessary but not sufficient - the most successful fighter pilots were so good that flying was largely an after thought but there were a large number of very good pilots who - whatever they wanted to happen - would use their flying abilities to stay out of trouble and not much else.

There were also a number of bad pilots who functioned as targets; taking so much time and concentration to merely keep the plane in the air that they didn't realize there was a killer behind them.

[jxramos]

continuing this chain of thought, there's the whole idea of no mind that comes to mind here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushin_(mental_state)

A popular culture reference shows up in this clip that's pretty good https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbecIBvR3mE

I've always thought that this phenomenon is what is being referred to when athletes talk about being in the zone.