[ok_dad]

Meditation, for me, is getting into a flow state doing just about anything I want to do. Sometimes I spend hours sim-racing, woodworking, or coding and after being in flow for those several hours, I feel exhausted from the mental and physical exertion, but I am also calm the rest of the day into the evening. It only works if I get into the flow state, but if I just sit there and fuck things up badly and never flow, then it's not useful. Other examples of activities I get into a flow state for, and work similarly to my hobbies, are cleaning, cooking, playing video games, reading, and rarely TV or movies. The more manual the better, I find. Woodworking is the best, especially working with dangerous machines, because I find you absolutely HAVE to focus and flow in order to use something like a table saw properly.

[vouaobrasil]

Cool. I'll just say here that a flow state like you're talking about is very different from point-focus meditation though. Both are great but the latter is specifically about focus on breathing/a point instead of taking up the mental space with a mindful activity. It's sort of like the difference between "negative space" and "positive space", and the latter (point meditation) can help with the former (flow state).

[FollowingTheDao]

You can be "in" a flow state" but you "practice" mediation. They are not the same thing.

> but if I just sit there and fuck things up badly and never flow, then it's not useful.

Mediation is always useful.

Thank you, an ex-Theravada Buddhist turned Daoist.

[namaria]

I think you're conflating 'flow state' with just being absorbed into something. Flow state is typically described by elite athletes when exerting at the edge of their skill and performing at a high level. It has little to do with doing routine stuff like cooking or very passive mind numbing activities like watching movies.

[dartos]

They can be the same.

You can get into a flow state when cooking or cleaning. The task just needs to be in a specific Goldilocks zone of demanding and feasibility.

Cooking eggs, to me, might get me in a flow state, but probably not a trained French chef, unless they were pushing themselves to elevate the dish.

Probably not when watching movies though, unless you were constantly analyzing the story… maybe in a mystery flick or something.

[namaria]

I mean, flow is either something special or trivial. If it's trivial as paying attention, why not discuss 'attention', which has a rich literature behind it?

If it's something special, that demands skill and investment and yields better than average results, it's worth figuring out how to trigger it consistently. But then it's harder to argue I can achieve something like it by doing something so easy and trivial as cleaning the house.

So is it trivial and just a well known mechanism by another name and thus just a label that muddles the waters, or is it something special, thus quite apart from just focusing on something, that merits effort, and should not be conflated with trivially achievable states of mind?

[ok_dad]

You seem to want to make this particular state of mind achievable only by the Gods or something, but being in a flow state isn’t hard, and you’ll know it immediately by the way it feels.

Edit: I might be overstating the ease of getting into flow for neurotypical folks, having just googled it I’ve found a few references to studies showing those with ASD get into a similar state of flow very easily.

[namaria]

no need to put words in my argument... I'm merely saying, if flow state is just 'paying attention' than maybe it's not a special category... and if it's something that takes effort and yields better results than just doing things normally, then it's probably not something you do when 'frying eggs'.

[dartos]

It isn’t just paying attention. It’s a Goldilocks zone of difficulty of task and feasibility of it.

The researcher responsible for the term and idea wrote a book saying as much. https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Perennial-...

It’s great that making eggs is easy enough for you that it isn’t engaging, but that isn’t the case for everyone (I need to try to fry eggs over easy. I’m not a good cook) You can also trick your mind into entering this state with a wide variety of tasks.

[ok_dad]

Elite athletes don’t own the idea of flow, flow is simply deep, deep focus on an activity that you are doing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

[Arn_Thor]

Citation needed. Otherwise you’re just gatekeeping the term