Re distortion, I wouldn’t read anything sinister into the word, and I don’t get any sense that Csikszentmihalyi is evaluating or making a judgement about ‘correctness’. It’s simply that time is experienced differently to our sense of the ‘normal’ passage of time – i.e. several hours can ‘fly by’ and seem to be only a few minutes, or vice versa. The phrase ‘time distortion’ is also used by hypnotists to describe the altered sense of time many people experience in trance.

Re the ‘most ACCURATE experience of time’ – I’m not sure there’s any such thing, as ‘experience’ implies subjectivity, whereas ‘accuracy’ suggests an objective standard. However, I would definitely agree with you that it’s the most BEAUTIFUL experience of time…

As I read this, I was particularly struck by the observation by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi that, in a state of flow, a ‘distorted’ sense of time is often experienced.

I am curious about this notion of ‘distortion’. Against what is the creator’s experience of time being evaluated? What is the official and ‘correct’ experience of time?

Into the discussion, I would put forward the notion that the most ACCURATE experience of time is when a human being is in the act of creation for it is then that often all else falls away and time is experienced moment, by moment, by moment…