Flow = Purpose + Discovery + Creation

Thinking back to when I was a kid, I remember excitedly coming home to play the next part of Max Payne on my PC. It was the first game that had bullet time (like in the Matrix!) and it had this really cool slow motion fire animation. There was also the joy of going through the game campaign so that I could find out what happened next, the joy of achieving game completion, all of these things made me look forward to playing it every night.

And when I finished it I moved onto the next one. Repeat ad infinitum. I love playing computer games. I've always loved playing them. And in the near future I aim to make some of my own for other people to play.

But thinking back to those times also got me thinking about something else: the general feeling I had of life.

At school, there were all the usual things I had to deal with. Plus dealing with my parents and chores was another facet of life. But overall, I felt happy, and I know that this was partly because I was always doing something on my computer, whether that be playing a game or doing some programming. And during those times I felt a sense of absolute joy and presence of mind.

I was discussing this with a friend who had a similar childhood experience. We both agreed on having that same feeling of joy. Initially we wondered whether it was just the fact that we were kids at that time and that life was therefore easy and joyful, perhaps? We quickly concluded - not really, hah! But when we were playing games there was definitely something special going on.

My friend suggested that perhaps it's because we were in the Flow state. Flow - as coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - is a state of deep focus, engagement, and intrinsic motivation where a person loses self-consciousness and time seems to fly.

Why do games get us into the Flow state to begin with? Thinking it through, three clear ingredients come to mind: Purpose, Discovery and Creation:

Purpose

When you play a game you have purpose. You may have just one or many purposes, including to enjoy yourself, socialise with people (if it's multiplayer), complete the quests, level up your character, find all the secret items and places, etc.

Sometimes the purpose is simply to overcome a challenges that the game presents to you. Good games give you good challenges that are just beyond your skill level.

Personally, I also love well designed campaign modes with interesting storylines. I want to know what happens next. But I also want to discover what the game has to offer...

Discovery

Playing a game is about discovery. Discovering what the designers have created in terms of story, characters, skills, items, etc. Even for a simple game like Tetris there is the possiblity to discover how high up the levels ago or whether you unlock as-yet-unseen aspects as you level up. Discovery tickles our innate sense of curiosity.

It's also about discovering yourself. Sometime I've started playing a game, only to feel that it's too hard and that I should perhaps give up. But I'd persist (it became a challenge in a way - my purpose!) and get past the challenges, and realize I was more capable than I thought.

Personal growth like this is only possible because games are interactive, where you and the game developers are together creating the experience...

Creation

You have agency in a game. You direct things. And depending on the game, you even have a level of control in terms of how the game unfolds over time as you play it. Some games even embed multiple possible campaign pathways to give you a choice between them.

Creation is active, whereas mere consumption is passive. Thus, creation is also automatically more engaging and grounding in terms of our sense of presence. In simple terms, our mind is less likely to wander off.

---

Every good game has the above three ingredients to some extent. And the best games - e.g., GTA - combine all three really well (Hint: If you want to design a great game now you know how!).

This then begs the question - why don't I experience this feeling as often these days? And why did life itself feel like it was in Flow back then?

When I was a kid gaming was a big part of my life. Putting aside hanging out with friends and schoolwork there were no other major responsibilities that took up a lot of my time. And so gaming was a "first-class activity" in life that demanded importance and attention. Put simply, it mattered. It's why my friends and I would discuss new games, compare progress with each other and have LAN parties and the such.

And here is the key point - if you are able to achieve Flow state in one of the main areas of your life then it makes your life in general feel as if it's in a Flow state.

Consequently, if you're not achieving Flow state in a main area of your life then you're not going to get that feeling overall about your life. This is why even when I sit down to play games today and get into that state it doesn't translate across to my life as a whole.

A time in my adult life when I felt like I was generally in the Flow state was during the DeFi summer of 2020 in the crypto space, back when I was actively involved. Every day I would wake up and look forward to chatting with my buddies about what new projects were announced, what new yield farms had sprung up, and where I needed to move my capital to take advantage of it all. There were tonnes of great memes, lots of optimism in the global crypto community, and lots of new ideas were emerging. We had a purpose of both making money and having fun, we were discovering new ideas, learning about finance and becoming better traders, and we were creating and shaping these ecosystems and the wider markets through our capital movements. Best of all, we were part of a community. It was such an exciting time to be in crypto.

Is Flow the opposite of addiction? I asked ChatGPT this question and it suggested that they are very different. To quote:

Flow is intentional, fulfilling, and adaptive. Addiction, on the other hand, is often compulsive, escapist, and maladaptive, leading to a loss of control and diminishing returns on satisfaction. Flow enhances creativity and mastery, while addiction traps a person in repetitive behaviors that often degrade well-being.

Just to be fair, I also asked how they were similar. To quote:

Both involve deep absorption in an activity and a temporary loss of self-awareness.

To me this is analogous to dancing vs sitting on your couch and watching daytime TV. Both are enjoyable immersive activities where you lose yourself but only one of them produces diminishing returns that degrade your well-being over time. Likewise, social media usage is mainly addiction. A lot of people doom-scroll on their phones, and are dipping in and out on a continual basis throughout the day. Arguably they have some purpose and are definitely discovering a lot, but there's very little to zero creation going on.

If we're going to live then we might as well live well. And I personally feel that if life is meant to "flow", then it really means being in that Flow state where you're present and feeling joy. The challenge is in making it happen as much as possible.