Forgetting Self, Time, and surroundings.....Creativity Page 121 by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

When distractions are out of the way and the other conditions for flow are in place, the creative process acquires all the dimensions of flow. HEre it is described by the poet Mark Strand:

Well, you're right in the work, you lose your sense of time, you're completely enraptured, you're completely caught up in what you're doing, and you're sort of swayed by the possiblities you see in this work. If that becomes too powerful, then you get up, becuase the excitement is too great. You can't continue to work or continue to see the end of the work becuase you are jumping ahead of yourself all the time. The idea is to be so.......so saturated with it that there is no future or past, it is just an extended present in which you are, making meaning. And dismantling meaning, and remaking it. Without undue regard for the words you are using. It's meaning carried to a higher order. It's not just essential communication, daily communication; it's a total communication. When you are working on something and you are working well, you have the feeling that there is no other way of saying what you are saying.......................