Flowing with Laundry

From one of James Altucher blog post I landed myself on the Flow Genome Project run by Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal.

And that got me thinking just when was the last time I experienced Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s idea of Flow.

Initially I thought it must have been some time since my low-mood (a kinder name for depression and anxiety).

[ Is it true? ]

I quickly went through, not the fabulous interweb, but my own definition of Flow.

This is how I describe it:

Flow is a state of being where one is flowing with whatever one is doing. It has the qualities of calmness, tranquility, total mental absorption where the boundaries of internal reality and external reality blurred.

Wow, it sounds so grand, so magnificent. OK, down right magical! (Fuck, am I desribing a unicorn here!?!)

No wonder I couldn’t recall my last Flow experience. And I’m not sure if I’ll be able to experience it in the near future.

[ Is it true? ]

Well … hang on. If we’re just talking about total mental absorption in an activity … then it shouldn’t be that difficult to find.

In fact I believed I’ve had a moment of Flow experience when I was folding the laundry before writing this post.

I recalled that I wasn’t thinking of anything. I was just there folding the clothes. My mind was blank but I could feel my arms moving. It’s as if the act of folding took over the entire time and space. I was there and I wasn’t there.

Blimey, I was in the Zone.

The folding of laundry was a very tiny flow experience. But imagine if I practice to immerse myself more fully into activities, there could be many flow experiences I could have during the day.

[ Off you go Jamie, let’s “flow” with tea now! ]

:) :) :)