Introduction: The Strange Paradox of Effortless Mastery
We tend to imagine mastery as the result of effort—more discipline, more focus, more control. The better we want to become at something, the more we assume we must tighten our grip, think harder, and try more intensely. Yet, paradoxically, some of the most remarkable performances in human experience seem to arise when effort itself disappears.
Athletes call it being “in the zone.” Artists describe it as becoming one with their work. Drivers, musicians, writers, and even gamers recognize the same phenomenon: a moment where action flows without friction, where decisions happen without deliberation, and where everything feels both effortless and precise.
This is what psychologists call the flow state—an optimal mode of experience where performance peaks and self-consciousness fades. But there is something deeply strange about it.
You cannot force it.
The more you try to enter this state, the more it slips away. The more you analyze it, the more artificial your actions become. And yet, just when you stop chasing it—when you let go of the need to perform perfectly—it appears, almost uninvited.
This paradox has fascinated thinkers for centuries. Long before modern psychology attempted to study it, ancient Taoist philosophers were already pointing toward the same insight: that true mastery is not about control, but about alignment. Not about forcing action, but about dissolving into it.
And perhaps nowhere is this idea captured more clearly than in an old Taoist story about a man who wanted to become a master charioteer—but had to learn something far more fundamental first.
The Taoist Lesson of Tsao-Fu: Becoming One With the Craft
In Taoist literature, there is a story about a man named Tsao-fu who aspired to become a master charioteer. Like many who seek mastery, he did what seemed obvious: he found a renowned expert and offered himself as an apprentice.
What followed, however, was not what he expected.
Years passed, and Tsao-fu received no instruction. No techniques, no explanations, no formal lessons. He simply served his master—observing, assisting, waiting. For most people, this silence would have been unbearable. Doubt would creep in. Frustration would grow. The absence of progress would feel like failure.
But Tsao-fu stayed.
His persistence was not fueled by impatience but by quiet commitment. And eventually, his master decided he was ready—not to learn charioteering directly, but to learn something deeper.
Instead of handing him the reins, the master placed two wooden posts into the ground and instructed Tsao-fu to jump between them. Again and again. No chariot, no horses—just this seemingly trivial exercise.
At first glance, it appears almost absurd. But as Tsao-fu practiced, something began to change. His movements became smoother, more fluid. What once required effort and calculation started to feel natural, even effortless. He was no longer trying to land correctly—he simply did.
Only then did the master reveal the lesson.
Mastery, he explained, is not merely about controlling external tools or executing techniques. It is about the union of intention and action. When the body, mind, and movement are no longer separate—when there is no gap between what you intend and what you do—skill becomes seamless.
In that state, the chariot is no longer something you operate. It becomes an extension of you.
The master described it vividly: when your mind is clear and your body relaxed, you can guide complexity without confusion. The many moving parts—horses, wheels, terrain—no longer overwhelm you. Whether on a narrow mountain path or an open plain, your actions remain precise, adaptable, and calm.
What Tsao-fu learned was not just a technique. He learned a way of being.
And at its core lies a principle that echoes through both ancient philosophy and modern psychology: the highest level of performance does not come from forcing control, but from dissolving the barrier between the self and the action.
This is the essence of what we now call the flow state.
Overthinking as the Enemy: When Awareness and Action Split
If Tsao-fu’s lesson points toward unity, then overthinking represents the opposite condition—a quiet but persistent fracture within us.
Most of the time, we do not act as a single, integrated being. Instead, there is a division. The body is engaged in the task, but the mind is elsewhere—commenting, analyzing, second-guessing. Action unfolds in one place, while awareness drifts in another.
This split is subtle, but its consequences are profound.
When you overthink, you are no longer fully inside the activity. You are observing yourself performing it. Every movement becomes subject to evaluation. Every decision is filtered through layers of doubt and anticipation. Instead of responding directly to what is happening, you respond to your thoughts about what is happening.
The result is friction.
Simple actions begin to feel complicated. Timing becomes awkward. Confidence erodes. Even well-practiced skills start to falter—not because they have disappeared, but because they are being interrupted.
In contrast, when someone is in a flow state, this division collapses. There is no observer standing apart from the action. There is no internal commentator narrating each step. There is only the activity itself, unfolding seamlessly.
This is why overthinking is so often described as “getting in your own way.” It is not that thinking is inherently bad—it is essential for learning, planning, and reflection. But during execution, excessive thinking becomes interference.
It inserts a delay between perception and response.
Imagine trying to catch a ball while consciously calculating its trajectory, your hand position, and the timing of your grip. The more you analyze, the more unnatural your movement becomes. Yet, when you simply react, the body often performs flawlessly, drawing on patterns it has already learned.
The same principle applies across domains—driving, writing, speaking, playing an instrument. Once a skill has been internalized, it no longer needs constant supervision. In fact, supervision becomes a liability.
What the Taoist master understood, and what modern psychology increasingly confirms, is that mastery requires a shift: from conscious control to embodied trust.
But making that shift is not easy.
Because the mind resists letting go.
A Modern Example: Learning to Drive and Losing Control
For those who tend to live in their heads, this split between awareness and action is not just a theory—it’s a daily experience.
Consider something as ordinary as learning to drive.
At first, driving feels overwhelming. Every action demands attention: checking mirrors, adjusting speed, steering, observing signs, anticipating other vehicles. The road becomes a field of constant calculation. You think before every move, and often, you think too much.
For someone prone to overthinking, this becomes even more pronounced. The act of driving is no longer just physical coordination—it turns into a mental maze. You analyze every possibility, imagine every mistake, and try to prepare for every outcome. Ironically, this effort to stay in control makes the experience feel less controlled.
There’s tension in the body. Hesitation in decisions. A subtle anxiety that lingers beneath each movement.
And yet, with time, something begins to shift.
After enough practice, the mechanics of driving settle into the background. You no longer consciously think about changing gears or adjusting pressure on the pedals. The body starts to remember. Patterns form. Reactions become quicker, smoother, more instinctive.
But the mind doesn’t always follow so easily.
Even when the skill is there, the tendency to overanalyze can remain. You might still find yourself getting tense in heavy traffic, second-guessing your decisions, or becoming overly cautious in unfamiliar situations. The knowledge exists—but it is not always allowed to express itself freely.
This creates a strange contradiction.
You know how to drive, but you don’t always feel like you do.
It is in this gap—between ability and trust—that overthinking does its work. The skill is present, but the mind interferes, inserting doubt where there should be fluidity.
And yet, every so often, something unexpected happens.
Without warning, the tension dissolves. The analysis stops. And for a brief moment, everything comes together.
The Turning Point: When Thinking Stops and Flow Begins
It rarely happens when you expect it.
There is no clear signal, no conscious decision that says, now I will enter the flow state. In fact, it often arrives in moments when thinking becomes impossible—or irrelevant.
Imagine driving on a crowded highway under heavy rain. Visibility drops. The road becomes unpredictable. There is no longer any room for internal commentary, no time to rehearse possibilities or analyze outcomes. The situation demands total presence.
And so, something shifts.
The mind, which was previously filled with noise—plans, worries, self-evaluation—falls silent. Not because you forced it to, but because the circumstances left no space for it. Attention is pulled entirely into the present moment.
You stop trying to drive well.
And suddenly, you are driving well.
Movements become precise without effort. Decisions happen instantly, without hesitation. The car, the road, the surrounding traffic—they no longer feel like separate elements you must manage. Instead, they form a single, coherent field in which you are fully immersed.
There is no sense of you controlling the situation from the outside. There is only the unfolding of action from within it.
This is the turning point—the moment where awareness and action merge.
What makes it so striking is not just the performance itself, but the feeling that accompanies it. A sense of ease, even in complexity. A quiet confidence that does not rely on deliberate thought. Sometimes even a subtle euphoria, as if everything is happening exactly as it should.
And when it ends, it leaves behind a kind of disbelief.
How did that happen?
Because if you try to retrace it—to analyze what you did, to reconstruct the steps—you quickly realize that there is nothing clear to grasp. The more you think about it, the more it slips into abstraction.
This is the paradox at the heart of flow.
It feels like control, but it arises when control loosens.
It feels like mastery, but it appears when the need to perform fades.
You cannot think your way into it.
But once you’ve experienced it, you know it is real.
What Is the Flow State? Insights from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
While the experience of flow has been recognized for centuries, it was Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who gave it a clear psychological framework.
Rather than treating it as something mystical or rare, he approached it as a natural state of consciousness—one that arises under specific conditions and can be studied, understood, and, to some extent, cultivated.
He defined the flow state as a condition in which a person is fully immersed in an activity that is both challenging and intrinsically rewarding. It is not passive enjoyment, nor is it forced effort. It is an active engagement where the difficulty of the task matches the individual’s skill level closely enough to demand full attention, but not so much that it overwhelms.
In this state, several distinct qualities tend to appear.
There is an intense focus on the present moment. Attention is no longer scattered across past regrets or future concerns—it is fully invested in what is happening now. This alone explains why flow feels so different from everyday experience, where the mind is often fragmented.
There is also a loss of reflective self-consciousness. The constant inner voice—the one that evaluates, judges, and comments—fades into the background. You are no longer watching yourself act; you are simply acting.
Action and awareness begin to merge.
This merging is crucial. It is what Tsao-fu’s master was pointing toward in his teaching. When there is no gap between intention and movement, performance becomes fluid. There is no hesitation, no internal resistance—just a continuous unfolding of action.
Time, too, behaves differently in this state. It may seem to slow down, giving you more room to respond, or speed up, making hours feel like minutes. Either way, your usual sense of time dissolves.
Csikszentmihalyi referred to this as an optimal experience—not because it is always pleasurable in a conventional sense, but because it represents a state where your capacities are fully engaged. Interestingly, these moments often occur in situations that are physically or mentally demanding.
Running a marathon, performing under pressure, solving a complex problem—these are not necessarily comfortable experiences. They can be exhausting, even painful. And yet, they are deeply satisfying.
Because in those moments, you are not divided.
You are fully there.
And that, more than comfort or ease, is what makes the flow state so compelling.
The Mechanics of Flow: Challenge, Skill, and Optimal Experience
If the flow state feels elusive, its underlying structure is surprisingly simple.
At its core lies a balance—a dynamic relationship between challenge and skill. When an activity is too easy relative to your abilities, the mind disengages. Attention drifts. You become bored. On the other hand, when the challenge far exceeds your current skill level, the opposite happens: tension rises, mistakes increase, and anxiety takes over.
Flow exists in the narrow space between these two extremes.
It emerges when the task is just difficult enough to demand your full attention, but not so difficult that it overwhelms you. In this zone, you are stretched—but not broken. You are engaged—but not stressed to the point of paralysis.
This is why flow often feels like being “on the edge” of your abilities.
Not in a chaotic or desperate way, but in a precise and focused manner. You are required to respond, adapt, and stay present. There is no room for distraction, because the task itself absorbs all available attention.
This balance is not fixed. As your skills improve, what once felt challenging becomes routine. If the difficulty of the task does not increase accordingly, boredom creeps in. Conversely, if the challenge suddenly spikes beyond your ability, anxiety returns.
Flow, therefore, is not a static state you reach once and keep. It is a moving target—something you must continuously recalibrate.
This is why certain activities are particularly conducive to flow. Sports, music, art, writing, and even games are structured in a way that naturally maintains this balance. They provide clear goals, immediate feedback, and adjustable levels of difficulty.
You know what you’re trying to do.
You can see how well you’re doing.
And you can feel yourself improving.
These elements create a feedback loop that sustains engagement. Each action informs the next. Each adjustment sharpens your response. Over time, the distinction between effort and ease begins to blur.
But perhaps the most important insight is this:
Flow is not just about performing well—it is about transformation.
When you operate at the edge of your abilities, you are forced to grow. Skills deepen. Perception sharpens. The self, in a sense, becomes more complex—more capable of handling nuance, difficulty, and subtlety.
This is why flow experiences are so memorable.
They do not just pass through you.
They change you.
Psychic Entropy: Why Your Mind Works Against You
If flow represents order, clarity, and unity, then its opposite is something far more familiar: inner chaos.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described this condition as psychic entropy—a state in which the mind is flooded with competing thoughts, distractions, and unresolved tensions. Instead of moving in a single direction, attention fragments. Energy disperses. Nothing fully connects.
You may recognize this state instantly.
You sit down to focus on a task, but your mind refuses to cooperate. A message notification pulls your attention away. A lingering worry resurfaces. You begin thinking about something unrelated, then something else. Before long, you are no longer engaged in the task itself, but in a swirl of disconnected thoughts orbiting around it.
The problem is not a lack of effort.
It is too much interference.
In a state of psychic entropy, awareness is no longer aligned with action. The task remains simple, but the mind complicates it. Instead of responding directly to what is in front of you, you are reacting to internal noise—memories, expectations, imagined outcomes.
This is why even basic activities can feel difficult under such conditions.
Driving from one place to another should be straightforward. Writing a page should be manageable. Having a conversation should be natural. But when the mind is overloaded, these actions become strained, hesitant, and inefficient.
Nothing flows.
According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, this inner disorder often arises when information disrupts our goals. Anything that demands attention without contributing to the task at hand creates friction. And in the modern world, such interruptions are constant.
Notifications, messages, background noise, multitasking—each one adds another layer of input competing for your awareness.
Even more subtle are internal sources of entropy.
Worry is a prime example. When you worry, you attempt to impose order on uncertainty. You mentally rehearse possibilities, anticipate problems, and try to prepare for outcomes that have not yet occurred. But instead of clarifying your actions, this process often overwhelms them.
You end up with too many scenarios and no clear direction.
Interpersonal conflicts function in a similar way. A single unresolved interaction can replay endlessly in the mind, consuming attention that could otherwise be directed toward meaningful activity.
In all these cases, the pattern is the same:
The task is simple.
The mind is not.
And as long as this inner noise persists, flow remains out of reach—not because you lack ability, but because your attention is too scattered to access it.
Anxiety vs. Boredom: The Two Enemies of Flow
If psychic entropy explains why the mind becomes chaotic, the balance between challenge and skill explains how that chaos takes shape.
On one side lies anxiety.
This is what happens when the demands of a situation exceed your current abilities. The task feels too complex, too fast, too unpredictable. You struggle to keep up. Mistakes begin to accumulate. The mind, sensing a loss of control, tries to compensate by thinking harder—analyzing, anticipating, worrying.
But this only makes things worse.
The more you think, the slower you react. The slower you react, the more overwhelmed you feel. And soon, instead of engaging with the task itself, you are entangled in your own internal pressure.
Anxiety is not just emotional—it is cognitive overload.
On the other side lies boredom.
Here, the situation is reversed. The task is too easy relative to your abilities. There is no real challenge, no demand for growth. Attention loosens because it doesn’t need to stay sharp. The mind begins to wander, searching for stimulation elsewhere.
You may still be performing the task, but you are no longer truly in it.
In boredom, nothing is at stake.
In anxiety, everything feels at stake.
And in both cases, flow is impossible.
Flow exists in the narrow band between these two states—a space where the challenge is meaningful enough to command your full attention, but not so overwhelming that it destabilizes you.
What makes this balance difficult is that it is constantly shifting.
As your skills improve, what once challenged you becomes routine. If the difficulty does not evolve, boredom sets in. Conversely, when you step into something new or unfamiliar, anxiety can easily take over before your abilities have time to catch up.
This is why flow is not something you simply “enter” and stay in.
It is something you navigate.
And more often than not, we drift toward one extreme or the other—either numbing ourselves with ease or overwhelming ourselves with pressure.
Very rarely do we remain in that precise middle ground where attention sharpens, effort dissolves, and action begins to flow.
Why You Can’t Force Flow (And Why Trying Makes It Worse)
At this point, the pattern becomes clear.
Flow depends on alignment—between skill and challenge, attention and action, mind and body. But the moment you try to force that alignment, something subtle breaks.
Because trying, in this context, is not neutral.
It introduces tension.
When you try to enter a flow state, you create a second layer of intention on top of the activity itself. You are no longer just writing, driving, or playing—you are also monitoring whether you are doing it well enough, whether you are in the zone yet, whether you are performing as you should.
This self-referential loop pulls you out of the experience.
Instead of being immersed in the task, part of your attention turns inward, evaluating the process. The activity becomes fragmented. Action slows down. Doubt creeps in. And the very state you were aiming for slips further away.
This is the paradox:
The desire to perform optimally interferes with optimal performance.
You can see this clearly in moments of pressure. The more you want something to go well, the more you think about it. The more you think about it, the more unnatural your actions become. What was once fluid turns rigid. What was once intuitive becomes mechanical.
It’s not that effort disappears in flow—but the feeling of effort does.
The difference lies in where your attention is placed. In flow, all attention is directed toward the task itself. When you try to force flow, attention splits between the task and your performance within it.
That split is enough to disrupt everything.
This is why the flow state often appears when you least expect it.
Not when you are striving for perfection, but when you are simply engaged. Not when you are trying to control every outcome, but when you are responding naturally to what is happening.
It is also why frustration tends to push it further away.
When flow doesn’t come, the instinct is to try harder. But this only deepens the problem. More effort leads to more tension. More tension leads to more interference. And soon, the activity becomes exhausting rather than absorbing.
And then, something interesting happens.
You give up.
Not in the sense of quitting the activity, but in letting go of the need to control it perfectly. You stop chasing the ideal experience. You stop monitoring yourself. You return, almost reluctantly, to the task itself.
And that is often the moment when flow quietly returns.
Not because you captured it.
But because you stopped pushing it away.
Wu Wei and Flow: The Philosophy of Effortless Action
Long before psychology attempted to map the mechanics of flow, Taoist philosophy had already articulated its essence through a concept known as Wu Wei.
Often translated as “effortless action,” Wu Wei does not mean doing nothing. It means acting in complete harmony with the situation—without strain, without resistance, without the friction of overthinking. It is action that arises naturally, as if it were unfolding on its own.
At first glance, this may sound abstract. But in the context of flow, it becomes strikingly concrete.
When Tsao-fu learned to move effortlessly between the wooden posts, he wasn’t just improving his balance—he was dissolving the gap between intention and execution. When a driver stops overanalyzing and simply responds to the road, the same principle is at work. When a musician loses themselves in the rhythm, or a writer in the sentence, Wu Wei is no longer a philosophical idea—it is a lived experience.
In all these cases, action is no longer forced.
It happens.
This is why Wu Wei is often misunderstood. It is not passivity. It is not laziness. In fact, it requires deep engagement. But it is an engagement free from unnecessary tension—the kind of tension created by self-conscious effort, by the need to control outcomes, by the constant interference of thought.
In modern terms, Wu Wei describes the subjective experience of being in flow.
You are fully active, yet there is no sense of strain. You are highly focused, yet not rigid. You are in control, yet not consciously controlling every detail. The distinction between doing and happening begins to blur.
This also explains why trying to achieve flow directly is so ineffective.
From a Taoist perspective, the more you impose your will onto the process, the more you disrupt its natural course. The harder you try to grasp the experience, the more it recedes. True effectiveness comes not from force, but from alignment.
“When the mind stops interfering, things follow their own course.”
This idea echoes through both ancient philosophy and modern psychology. Flow cannot be manufactured through sheer effort. It arises when the conditions are right—when the mind is clear, the body is engaged, and the activity itself becomes the center of attention.
In that sense, Wu Wei is not a technique.
It is a way of relating to action.
And the closer you move toward it, the more likely flow is to find you.
How to Create the Conditions for Flow
If flow cannot be forced, the question naturally becomes: what can we actually do?
The answer is both simple and demanding.
You cannot control the state itself—but you can shape the conditions in which it is more likely to emerge. Much like a seed cannot be commanded to grow, but can flourish when placed in the right environment, flow arises when certain elements come together.
The first is choosing an activity that genuinely engages you.
Flow is not something you can sustain in tasks that feel meaningless or purely external. There must be an intrinsic pull—something about the activity that makes you want to continue, even without rewards or recognition. This does not mean it has to be easy or pleasurable at all times, but it must feel worth doing.
The second is finding the right balance between challenge and skill.
As discussed earlier, this balance is dynamic. If something feels too easy, increase the difficulty—set higher standards, introduce constraints, or push for refinement. If it feels overwhelming, break it down, slow it down, or build the necessary skills step by step. The goal is to stay in that narrow band where full attention is required.
Clear goals also play a crucial role.
You need to know what you are trying to do in the moment. Not in an abstract, long-term sense, but in a concrete and immediate way. What is the next step? What does progress look like right now? Clarity reduces hesitation and allows action to flow without constant deliberation.
Equally important is feedback.
In flow-conducive activities, feedback is immediate and unambiguous. You can see, feel, or hear the result of your actions as they happen. A missed note, a wrong turn, a poorly written sentence—these signals allow for instant adjustment. Without feedback, attention drifts, and engagement weakens.
Focus, however, remains the central requirement.
And this is where most people struggle.
To sustain attention, you must reduce interference. This often means eliminating distractions—turning off notifications, creating a quiet environment, or setting boundaries around your time. But it also involves managing internal distractions: letting go of unnecessary planning, worrying, and rumination.
Practices like mindfulness and meditation can help train this ability. They are not shortcuts to flow, but they strengthen the very skill flow depends on—the capacity to remain present without being pulled away by thought.
Rituals can also be surprisingly effective.
Simple, repeatable routines before engaging in a task—whether it’s a warm-up, a walk, or a moment of stillness—can signal to the mind that it is time to focus. Over time, these rituals become associated with deep engagement, making it easier to enter that state of readiness.
Finally, there is one principle that ties everything together:
Go all the way into what you are doing.
Partial attention does not produce flow. Divided focus weakens it. The more completely you commit to the activity, the more likely it is that the boundary between you and the task begins to dissolve.
And when that happens, even briefly, flow has a place to emerge.
Solitude, Distraction, and the Modern Mind
If flow depends on clarity of attention, then the modern world is almost perfectly designed to prevent it.
Never before has the human mind been exposed to such a constant stream of information. Notifications, messages, news cycles, social media, entertainment—each one competing for attention, each one fragmenting it just a little more. What once required deliberate effort to access now arrives uninvited, filling every empty space.
And in doing so, it quietly reshapes the way we experience our own minds.
Instead of sustained focus, we become accustomed to interruption. Instead of depth, we drift toward surface-level engagement. Even when we sit down to do something meaningful, part of us remains on standby, ready to switch, respond, or check something else.
This is fertile ground for psychic entropy.
Attention becomes scattered not because we lack discipline, but because we are constantly pulled in multiple directions. The mind learns to expect distraction. Silence begins to feel uncomfortable. Stillness, unfamiliar.
In such a state, flow has little room to emerge.
This is where solitude becomes significant—not as an escape from the world, but as a temporary clearing of mental space.
Solitude allows attention to settle.
When external input is reduced, the mind gradually quiets. The constant influx of new information slows down, and what remains begins to organize itself. Thoughts lose their urgency. The need to react diminishes. And in that space, the possibility of sustained engagement returns.
This does not mean that solitude is always required for flow.
Many people experience flow in highly social or dynamic environments—team sports, collaborative work, live performances. But even in these contexts, there is a form of psychological solitude: a narrowing of attention, a temporary exclusion of irrelevant stimuli.
What matters is not isolation, but the reduction of noise.
In a world that constantly amplifies distraction, this becomes a deliberate act.
Turning off notifications. Stepping away from endless streams of content. Allowing moments of quiet without immediately filling them. These small decisions accumulate, gradually restoring the mind’s capacity to focus.
And with that capacity, the conditions for flow begin to reappear.
Not as something forced or engineered, but as something that can finally take hold in a space no longer overcrowded.
Conclusion: Letting Go So It Can Arrive
The flow state remains, in many ways, an enigma.
Not because it is irrational, but because it resists direct control. It does not respond to force, urgency, or the desire to capture it. The more tightly you try to hold it, the more it slips through your fingers.
And yet, it is not random.
Across ancient philosophy and modern psychology, a pattern emerges. Flow arises when certain conditions are met—when skill meets challenge, when attention is undivided, when action and awareness are no longer separate. It appears when the mind is no longer cluttered with excess, and when the body is free to do what it has already learned.
But perhaps the most important insight is the simplest one.
Flow is not something you achieve.
It is something you allow.
It arrives in moments when the need to control fades—when you stop trying to perform perfectly and begin to engage fully. When the internal noise quiets down, even briefly, and you return to what is in front of you.
This is why it often feels so surprising.
It shows up not when you are striving for it, but when you have forgotten about it. Not when you are watching yourself closely, but when you are absorbed in the act itself.
In that sense, the lesson is not about chasing a state, but about removing what stands in its way.
Less distraction.
Less overthinking.
Less resistance.
And in their absence, something remarkable becomes possible.
The writer becomes the words.
The driver becomes the road.
The action becomes effortless—not because effort disappeared, but because it is no longer felt.
And for a moment, however brief, everything flows.