# Even on paper I write in a bastardised, paper-friendly subset of Markdown. I write underscores to denote words I wish to emphasise, a greater than symbol to indicate text I am quoting, and surrounds words that will later form a link with square brackets.
I suppose it shows that the primary intent is for what I write to be put on the web. In that regard it is helpful but it also means that I'm thinking about formatting, about publishing, rather than just on the word themselves. It definitely shows that I am used to writing for the web and only now transitioning back to paper as though it is some strange concept.
This creates a conflict between getting the words down and ensuring those words will be presented in the way I originally intended. It's a conflict between flow and refinement, when the writing and editing should be separate, distinct phases in the process.
Maybe I'm just overthinking it. Maybe I should just stick to what works for me, what seems to work at least.
@colinwalker that’s a good idea, though I can see it could interrupt flow. Maybe marking it up afterwards would help solve that conflict?
@colinwalker I have done the same thing in the past as well. While I was formatting my writing with Markdown, what I was writing was never going to be published. There wasn't a need for me to apply formatting from a presentation perspective, it's just that I wanted to emphasise certain lines and paragraphs as a revision aid.
For myself I don't see it as thinking about formatting for publishing, but more for formatting to make it clearer for myself when I come to read it again.
Use what works for yourself.
@colinwalker I write in Markdown when I write on paper too! I thought it was a function of always thinking web first, but then realized that I did that when I was a child, too. (Not exactly Markdown, but a set of symbols that denoted things like emphasis and blockquotes and stuff like that.) Maybe it's just a function of our desire to organize, categorize, and sense-make?
@vasta Maybe so but I only recall starting it after writing on Google+ a lot with the markup system they had then that naturally gravitated to Markdown.
@colinwalker I’ve realized that we do two basic forms of writing - one where we’re writing something personal, or something new - something where the surroundings don’t matter. But the other form is when we’re discussing an idea, always in relation to someone or something else. In that writing, we tend to want to quote those ideas and people. Neither one is the lesser form of writing, and if you do write the way you do, it’s because you write the latter form more.
I think that’s perfectly fine and you may be overthinking it... ?
@nitinkhanna I thought as much ?
Barbara Gail Montero, former ballet dancer and now associate professor of philosophy at CUNY, argued against flow in this piece from May 2017. Well, not against flow per se but against the romantic notion that entering a state of flow allows one to perform at their best by getting out of the way and letting flow take over. The concept of flow, however, appears to have been misinterpreted by many leading to the need for such a rebuttal. As quoted on The Pursuit of Happiness Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi found that when people enter a state of flow during this "optimal experience" they feel "strong, alert, in effortless control, unselfconscious, and at the peak of their abilities." When you look at the language employed - effortless control, peak of their abilities - it is easy to see how this can be interpreted incorrectly. There is, however, one key word in the above: feel. People in a state of flow feel in control and at the peak of their abilities, they feel things are easy and effortless. That is the point of all this. Flow concerns itself with how the activity is experienced and not with its excellence. Instead, deliberate practice is required for us to give our best performance. We will not necessarily get the best from ourselves when we enter a state of flow but we will enjoy the activity more, we will be happier as a result. I see the two as working in tandem: dedicated practice gets us to a point where we are more likely to experience the flow state, by reaching a certain level we open ourselves up to the possibility of it occurring, but then we must take the result of that state and reapply the concentrated effort to improve it. It is not a zero sum game, not one or the other but, obviously, this doesn't apply in all circumstances or with all activities, in a ballet performance you can't, as Montero says, "stop the music, ask the audience for their forgiveness and try again". Still, there are occasions and activities where we can reap the benefits of this two pronged approach. It is like the separation between writing and editing, and here's where we loop back to yesterday's post. Flow lets us get words on the page, a baseline that seems to have come from nowhere. We must then examine and revise the result to make it the best it can be. With my previous post on flow I got caught up in the romanticised vision to a degree but stated
This "autopilot" means we are not obsessing over every detail (again not applicable to ballet where everything must be meticulous yet seem effortless), not holding ourselves back, just letting things happen and almost absolving ourselves of responsibility. That's why it feels so easy, so controlled, and why it feels we are at the peak of our abilities even if the performance is technically lacking. We imagine that this is what expertise feels like. The flow state itself may not create the optimum performance but, depending on the circumstances, it may put us in a position to do so as long as we are willing to put in the hard work once the state has passed.