It was early Wednesday evening, and I was beginning to think about dinner. I had some options, though the fridge was looking a little bare; there were salad greens, so I could have a salad, and there are the always-present blocks of pepper jack cheese, so I could have made a quesadilla. Each of these meals would have taken approximately 10 minutes to prepare. I have been reading Michael Pollan’s brilliant book called Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, however, and was inspired to up my game. I have already learned a lot from this book. One detail that has taught me volumes about cooking is this: cooks commonly start a dish by creating a mirepoix, or a dice of onions, carrots, and celery. They then sweat the vegetables for up to 40 minutes on medium to low heat.
Yes, in my rudimentary cooking in the past, I too had often created a quasi-mirepoix; I would throw some chopped onions into a pan and stir-fry them until seemingly edible.
On Wednesday, I was determined to cook something truly delicious. And so I did, and I took my sweet time. I made a fine dice of onions and carrots and sweated them until the onions were fully translucent. Then I added sliced mushrooms and garlic. I cooked quinoa on the side, and then made a curry sauce out of Thai red curry paste and coconut milk. I have made this dish many times before, and it has never tasted so good. Usually, I would throw everything together in twenty minutes or less. This time, I took about an hour to cook everything, and the task of cooking continuously was riveting and intensely enjoyable.
The point of this tale is that it has gotten me thinking (again) about the concept of flow. In his book, Pollan mentions flow. He is speaking here about how exceedingly necessary it is to be patient while cooking, and that he often lacks patience while waiting for onions to sweat. He says:
“Much as I like the whole concept of “flow”—that quality of being so completely absorbed in an activity that you lose the thread of time—my acquaintance with it is sorely limited. A great many boulders get in the way of my flow, disturbing the clarity of the mental waters and creating lots of distracting noise” (Pollan 142).
In another fascinating book, flow is mentioned again, with a little more information. In Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman discusses the origins of flow. Flow is an idea first created by psychologist Mihaly Csikzemtmihalyi. It is a mental sensation of effortless concentration; “people who experience flow describe it as ‘a state of effortless concentration so deep that they lose their sense of time, of themselves, and of their problems’” (Kahneman 40).
Now I am going to theorize. Bare with me, as this is all speculation and has no basis in science, I just like to think about such things.
Things we really like, that cause us real joy, must have a biological significance. I say this because there is some good evidence; many of the things we really enjoy are essential to our survival: eg. Eating, sleeping, sex.
Therefore, experiencing flow must have some sort of biological purpose. I like to imagine our caveman ancestors focused in on their prey, eyes locked on the juicy, delicious wooly mammoth, prepared to spring into action. Perhaps having an ability to zero our focus in on one task was essential to being a successful omnivore. Men, the traditional hunters, had to track and kill animals that would range far from home. Losing focus meant lost prey, which was rare. Women, as gatherers, would have to focus on finding the right kinds of edible plants and fungi. Losing focus here meant potentially poisoning the family.
I have been thinking so deeply about the concept of flow because I believe it is important for people to experience it. I think you can experience flow doing almost anything; reading (I get so focused on books that if someone talks to me, I literally do not hear them), writing, entering data, doing the dishes, sea kayaking, folding laundry, or jogging. Tasks that seem “boring” can take on a new aura if viewed differently. We are all required to do things that can be perceived as “a waste of time” or “boring”. This can be our entire day at work sometimes, and indeed, this can be frustrating. We are becoming increasingly entitled, however, to feeling that we should not have to do these tasks— that they have no value, and should therefore be given to machines, or people willing to be paid less then us. Instead we want to spend our time in a state of constant distraction.
I think that our current society of constant distraction causes stress. If we are never able to enter the mindlessness of flow, our worries are ever present— when your phone pings and you are reminded of the fact that you don’t have a baby yet and everyone is having babies and the stock market is crashing and Sochi is a disaster and you forgot to call your mom and you have to do your taxes this month and you hate your job. This is stressful and exhausting.
If you were waiting for me to bring up outdoor education, here it comes. Spending time in the wilderness is one of the best ways to experience flow. Paddling slowly down a twisting river or doing a two-mile crossing in a sea kayak gives the brain a rest. Without any distractions, you can release your brain from the torrent of information constantly being thrown at it. Things that you used to hate, like chopping firewood or scrubbing pots, can take on a therapeutic quality.
To experience flow, to be more productive, we must make time for slowness. It can take a good deal of time to remove yourself mentally from the chaos that is pressing in. Meditation, yoga, and (I would argue) canoeing are great ways to regain focus. Also, cooking an elaborate meal. Not surprisingly, in all of these examples, your focus is not the only thing that benefits.
Works Cited:
Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011. Print.
Pollan, Michael. Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation. New York: The Penguin Press. 2013. Print.
Ships and Harbors. 