Flow and performance

 At the intersection of business-oriented self-actualization content, psychology, and the personal artist experience—three topical dialogues I’ve regularly consumed throughout my life—you often hear discussions of flow. These discussions typically characterize flow as a tool, sometimes a “cheat-code,” for increasing productivity and generating new ideas. I’ve also heard flow described before as a state of play, occurring when appropriate challenge meets proficiency, teasing the brain into a state of utter engagement and absorption.

While these descriptions are true, Chapter 6 of American Camino, “Spiritual Rambling,” approaches the concept differently than I have seen before, emphasizing flow as a spiritual, transformational experience rather than just a performance enhancer.

In one word, flow is simply: immersion. The natural product of such immersion is seemingly effortless application, unlooked-for revelation, and unfettered creation. As discussed in Chapter 6, entering the flow state requires a mixture of novelty and familiarity or mundanity. Though this appears contradictory, we can observe similar alterations to our productivity from flow-adjacent practices on both ends of the spectrum. When considering the impact of novelty, we need look no further than our own instinct to seek new sources of inspiration or even new physical settings to place us in the mindset to complete our work (as evidenced by the cyclical journey I have made between dorm and library in the course of writing this blog post). Similarly, the contracting, focusing effect of repetition, ritual, and deprivation/separation can also create pathways to flow, as seen in traditional monastic practices and even some aspects of modern ascetic practices such as “dopamine-detoxing.”

Chapter 6 notes that many experiences we encounter in the modern day lack the duration necessary to allow the flow state to emerge. Though still relatively short in comparison with a thru-hike of the AT or Camino, I believe I began to experience flow in its extended form during one of my most intense periods of acting.

One summer, I worked on the set of a short action film that happened to coincide with the final two weeks of rehearsals for a play I was already performing in. During the day, I worked on the set, splitting my duties between background talent and production assistant. Half of my hours there were devoted to drilling martial art forms to perfection, the other half to coating an endless expanse of black wall with another, cleaner layer of black paint. In the evening, I transitioned to my role in the theater production, putting final touches on the lines and blocking I’d practiced for months prior. The repetition of these activities, mindless and meditative in their execution yet exacting and fresh every time, made me feel alive, guided, fluid. For more than two weeks, this was my life: wake up, perform, paint, perform, sleep.

This experience was one of the purest encounters I’ve had with flow. In the routine, I found myself unshackled from the usual self-consciousness that accompanies both performance and productivity. The complete immersion in the craft of performance created an environment where my actions felt inevitable rather than forced. I was no longer laboring over execution but existing fully within the task, moving through each moment with an intuitive ease that transcended conscious effort. It was as if, for those two weeks, I had stepped outside of time—flowing not toward an outcome but within the experience itself.

When a performer first assumes a role, the novelty is often too great to enter this state, demanding that the actor view their own performance through an external lens. But when that threshold of familiarity and immersion is reached, conscious awareness of the camera, the audience, and even the self fades. “The consciousness of the actor focuses away from itself, also away from techniques leading to the action” (Redick 250). Through continual rehearsal, the conscious reasoning behind action and speech dissipates. Each line loses its independent significance, assimilating into the journey of the scene itself. The repetition of each scene becomes its own mantra or ritual, allowing the actor to exist fully within the performance rather than merely executing it.

It seems contradictory that a practice catering entirely to appearance and observation could free an actor from self-awareness. Yet that absorptive state is what an actor seeks—to be consumed by the scene, by the stripped-down reality they exist within, engaging freely in the ritual without thought or hesitation. In this state, the external pressures of performance fall away, leaving only the experience itself.

The enviable state of flow for an actor is to be unaware, no longer evaluating conversational beats, timing lines, or fabricating an emotional atmosphere, but instead becoming consumed by an intuitive state. In this state, the actor ceases to notice the camera or the audience, responding without conscious thought to the immediate environment’s prompts. This is the ultimate goal—not to act, but to be.

As Leeuw says in a quote on page 254 of American Camino, “When the dance is genuine, one can no longer speak of an action which one performs, but of a dance which sweeps one away.” This speaks directly to the phenomenon of losing oneself in the performance, where movement and thought align effortlessly, and action flows without deliberate intention. This is not just a technique—it is a way of being that actors, artists, and even those engaged in everyday tasks can tap into.

The experience of flow facilitates the reinvention of the self, aiding in self-understanding by stripping away the “doing” of the marketplace, leaving only the “being.” In the unfettered experience of being, what flows from the self is a pure, unadulterated response to experience. In this moment, we are able to form a clearer perspective—not of the theorized, language-defined self, but of the actual self. We are no longer constrained by external expectations but instead move freely within the experience itself.

The “self-emptying” effect of flow allows mental clutter, preconceived notions, and interpretations to dissolve. It creates the space to consider what it truly means to live as ourselves, to form memories shaped not by our transactional relationship to the broader marketplace but by our collaborative, experiential relationship to the world and to those around us. Flow is not merely a productivity tool—it is a window into deeper self-knowledge, an avenue toward authenticity, and a reminder of what it means to be fully present in our own lives.