Programming used to put me into FLOW state often. That’s a big part of why I fell in love with it. Late night missions building games, apps, whatever, it felt great. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has a great quote on this: “The best moments in our lives… occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult or worthwhile.” AI has kind of nuked the personal challenge part of that. I don’t fall into those same FLOW states nearly as often anymore. It’s a strange position to be in because I’m undeniably more productive, but some of the joy is gone. I still love building software, but now the enjoyment comes more from seeing products come to life and have real-world impact than from the actual process of writing the code. I’ll miss the deep flow states that came from fighting code for hours into the night, but I feel like I do need to find new areas that still offer that same sense of challenge.