EASY Flow State vs HARD Flow State
Published February 10, 2025 · 8:39 · 123,159 views
About This Video
A taxonomy of creative states that most productivity content collapses into a single category. Van distinguishes between easy flow: the tinkering zone where you're fixing glasses with two-part epoxy, cutting tripod shoes, modifying flashlights with heat shrink tube, and hard flow, the writing phase where the resistance is real and the procrastination is constant. The tinkering is seductive precisely because it feels productive while avoiding the work that actually matters.
The entity list alone (Jane Campion, Rick Caruso, Joe Rogan, Magnus Carlsen, a Leica Q2, the LA fires) reveals how Van's mind works during the writing phase. Lateral connections fired under pressure, the kind of associative thinking that only happens when you're deep enough in the hard flow to lose your bearings. The video is a confession disguised as a framework: the business Van has chosen requires sitting in difficulty, and gilding the repair scars is the only honest aesthetic for that process.
Transcript
I think this episode is about my reaction to a disaster and thank you betterhelp for sponsoring this episode
sometimes we have an intense experience and it can feel like our Mind is Playing Tricks on us I have found that therapy
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want use this URL for 10% off your first month of therapy and the link is in the description thank you better
help crazy glue did not fix my glasses so now it's two-part epoxy time this ain't procrastinating I got to fix me glasses
on the one hand you got your Easy Flow State and that's the building and fixing and tinkering and on the other hand you
got the hard Flow State which is the sitting down and writing and it's the sitting down and writing that makes the
episode good so if this episode is bad it's because I didn't sit down and write enough but I did do quite a bit of
tinkering this needs a magnet why want to make an eye shade for the Leica that turns the LCD screen off is the tinkering Flow
State put some heat shrink tube on the end of this flashlight right here so that I can easier cut the tripod shoe down and
see if it still fits the tripod than the writing Flow State magnet for my Laura comp tape measure I really think I should gild this repair
scar why is the tinkering Flow State easier than the writing Flow State somewhere in my books I read about
Eastern laziness versus Western laziness Eastern laziness is like laying around smoking a hookah all day but Western
laziness our laziness is making yourself super busy all the time time so that you don't have to face the
important things I.E writing the episode I think the scatter brain has something to do with my reaction to the
fires and the Panic of it no it doesn't work [Music] ah it I think it's because the writing takes full concentration like I can't
listen to podcasts while I'm writing Rick Caruso on Joe Rogan doesn't hurt at all that's one and while I'm writing I am way way way more
sensitive to Interruption even in the pouring rain we have the leaf blowers [Music] why when I'm writing I have to blanket
myself in the writing task and it takes a long long time I don't know how long I'm going to be in the
writing phase and then I'm eating into my production phase and in tinkering you can just stop okay here's the
test okay it works that way now it works that way it's reversible before it wasn't so I can tilt the camera with writing if you stop
you're going to lose a lot of the pro progress you made in your brain trying to figure out what it is you're writing
the writer director Jan Campion said when I first started writing um one of the things I realized was that you know like for the first
like 3 hours and you sit down to do something um you know nothing really happens it's like it's testing you will
you stay for that fourth hour the unconscious mine is a little bit like a quite shy pet and you have to
set conditions where it trusts that if it comes out and plays you'll feed it you'll pay attention to it you won't ignore it you won't scare
it three hours of writing before your subconscious is comfortable enough to come out and play and that's when you
get the good stuff what's the chess player's name Gustav Olson Magnus olison and third writing wipes me out I think I heard that Magnus
Carlson when he does a chess tournament he burns something like 5,000 calories of electricity using his mind and I
totally empathize with [Music] that okay so what's the point yes it's harder to write than it is to fix stuff
and build stuff and clean stuff but what's the point and the point is this I think the fires made us a little
crazy and for me tinkering helps me avoid unpleasant realities but writing helps enable us to confront
unpleasant realities maybe that's why writing is the hard Flow State and I get the same out of both I get the same Flow State out of
both the easy and the hard this is the business we've chosen this is the business we've chosen I think this is why an artistic medium
is also called a discipline writing discipline because it takes discipline and discipline sucks and how lucky are we who have both
the Easy Flow States and the hard flow States on this week's patreon only video my favorite camera is this Leica Q2 I
refin this camera according to my needs today I'm going to make an eye shade for it and so this is is the solution I came up with [Music]
Products & Tools Mentioned
- BetterHelp uses
- Leica Q2 uses
- crazy glue uses
- two-part epoxy uses
- heat shrink tube uses
- Lufkin/Laura comp tape measure uses
People Referenced
Jane Campion, Rick Caruso, Joe Rogan, Magnus Carlsen