When I’m in a flow state, it’s like I black out. Time is different. I’m not watching me, or talking to me, or worried about me, in any of the normal life ways.

When I did music, that was always the way I knew a performance was good, or at least, the way I knew I gave it my all - because I wouldn’t remember it, apart from hazy bits, like a dream.

A flow state takes over.

I get into a flow state when I’m writing, these days. And, when I’m recording (most but not all) podcasts I do. It’s part of why I take notes as I go on all of them. When the flow state really kicks in, I just go.

When I’m in a flawed state, it’s like all my senses are turned on and up, all at once.

I’m nitpicking details, I’m annoyed by past grievances that are suddenly floating to the top of my mind.

A flawed state takes over and it’s anxiety and aggression, usually towards myself, at all the things I haven’t done.

Stuff I forgot about at work, usually because a flow state got the best of my attention, and the details of adulthood that are essential in many cases, but oh so boring.

I can appreciate I need them both.

But I can also appreciate the flawed states have to be purposed, or else their utility is wasted on trying to numb them out of existence. I do have to get back to the client or finish the analysis I wasn’t thinking of since before it was an appropriate hour to respond. What I can’t have happen is that the endless to-dos steal my own ability to achieve a flow state elsewhere.

I am eternally grateful for however I figured out how to put myself into flow states for all sorts of deep work.

I am eternally aware of how strongly I feel the flawed states when I find myself in them.

I can accept the variance between the two as humanity.

But the flow states are the only thing that makes it worth it.