“No question about it,” says Flow Genome Project executive director Jamie Wheal, “there’s a dark night of the flow. In Christian mystical traditions, once you’ve experienced the grace of God, the ‘dark night of the soul’ describes the incredible pain of its absence. The same is true for flow. An enormous gap sits between the ecstasy of the zone and the all-too-familiar daily toil waiting for us on the other end. If you’ve glimpsed this state, but can’t get back there—that lack can become unbearable.”
