Software engineer marks end of three-decade 'Phish flow state' as AI-driven work disrupts creative rhythm
After thirty years of programming daily while listening to the band Phish, a software engineer reports that the shift to managing AI agents has rendered the music and his work "out of phase", ending a specific creative zone essential for his most significant achievements.
Christopher Meiklejohn, a software engineer, has concluded a thirty-year ritual in which he programmed daily while listening to the band Phish. In a recent reflection, Meiklejohn describes how this specific combination of audio and code once enabled a deep flow state that was essential for his most significant creative achievements, including writing a two-hundred-page dissertation and building complex distributed systems.
The author explains that his current role, which involves managing AI agents and handling frequent context switching, no longer aligns with the long, continuous jams of Phish. This structural mismatch causes the music and his work to become "out of phase", effectively ending his ability to access that specific creative zone. While he still enjoys the band, the staccato nature of modern engineering prevents him from merging with the music as he did previously.
Meiklejohn reports that he has listened to Phish every day since he was fifteen years old, a habit that began after he was rejected for a grocery store job at age fifteen for being "overqualified" with his programming skills. He details specific periods of intense productivity, including writing his dissertation between 2021 and 2023 while attending live streams of Phish shows from venues like Hampton and Alpine Valley.
The author mentions attending nine consecutive nights of Phish shows at the Sphere recently, noting that while the music is more present in his life than ever, the structural rhythm of his modern engineering work prevents him from merging with it as he did previously. He contrasts his past work style, characterised by long arcs of attention matching Phish jams, with his current staccato, queue-based management of AI agents.
Meiklejohn expresses sadness that the "fulfilment" and creativity of his past are no longer part of his workday. He notes that while he does useful things in his current role, he does not feel what he used to feel while doing them, observing that the creativity that lived inside the former flow state is no longer available to him.
The narrative serves as a personal reflection on the changing landscape of software development, highlighting how the shift toward agentic workflows may impact the traditional methods engineers use to enter deep work states.
