Shared flow
I went to dinner last night with a bunch of other speakers from the No Fluff tour and had a great time. One little interesting tidbit of conversation was about shared flow state. As programmers, we’re all familiar with solo flow state when you’re in the zone, writing code. We were talking about pair programming, which when it’s good, is a shared flow state and can be even richer than solo flow.
I mentioned that another case of this I’ve experienced is playing viola in a quartet. You are very intensely aware of what the other three people are doing (even though that may be evident externally) and you are all trying to accomplish the same thing. It’s exhilarating in a very unique way.
Of course, sex is another good example of shared flow state. :)
Anyone have any others?
Hi! My name is Alex Miller and I live in St. Louis. I write code for a living and currently work for 
What you’re calling shared flow is exactly why people participate in drum circles.
++Alan
Ah, good. That reminds me that in the same conversation we also talked about Phish and their ability to draw the entire crowd into cycles of tension and release. I’d say that’s probably weaker but they do it at an amazing scale.
Sex w/ a string quartet
Riding a tandem bicycle.
I would think that fighting in battle would have to be one of the most intense shared flows there is.