“The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”
– Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, describing Flow in Wired Magazine
I think most children naturally experience flow state when they’re playing, making art, reading. I know I did.
But finding flow again when I was a young adult was harder. Formal education, with timed bells, and all sorts of disruptions and demands on your attention, seems designed to disrupt flow states in teenagers. Add that the constant distraction of digital life, and it leaves me wondering of my students, “Have you ever felt a flow state?” At least, in your young adulthood?
In my time since school, I have found flow state to be thrilling, exciting, and almost addicting – I know when I’ve gone too long without finding a flow state. I find it most often when reading, writing, in rehearsal.
So, it’s a goal for students to help them experience a flow state. Maybe they can find it in rehearsal, or in a performance. Maybe the can find it in some other act of creation or in solving some fascinating math problems or an amazing novel.
I don’t care much how they find it, but my hope is for my students to find a passion in which they can find a flow state. I hope they find it as soon as possible in their lives, and then keep seeking it. The best work I do is created in a flow state, and I know it will make their lives better the sooner they find it.
I’m reading more about flow state and how to teach it; but I think that it must be found, individually, and the best we can do is create opportunities and situations that give rise to a flow state.