Summary of the book by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi “Flow. Psychology of optimal experience”.
Make time for important thoughts and conclusions that can change your life. Zozhnik and the SmartReading project share with you the summary of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book “Flow. Psychology of optimal experience”.
A new look at happiness
Even 2300 years ago, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle came to the conclusion that more than anything else, a person wants happiness, but we still do not know what happiness is and how to achieve it. What does a person need to feel happy? First of all, understand that happiness is not the result of luck or chance. It cannot be bought with money or achieved by force. It does not depend on the events taking place around us, but on our interpretation of them. Happiness is a state that everyone should cultivate and keep within themselves. People who have learned to control their experiences will be able to influence the quality of their lives themselves. Only in this way can each of us come closer to being happy.
Happiness cannot be found by consciously setting such a goal. We find happiness only by fully immersing ourselves in the little things that make up our lives. Our perception of life is the result of various forces that give shape to our experiences. In those rare moments when we felt control over our actions, domination over our own destiny, we feel inspiration, a special joy. These feelings remain in our heart for a long time and serve as a guide in life. This is the optimal experience, and it is closest to what we usually call "happiness." Having achieved control over his mental energy, spending it on the fulfillment of consciously chosen goals, a person becomes a more complex, more multifaceted personality. Improving his skills, challenging more and more complex tasks, he is constantly evolving.
As the basic problems of survival are solved, a person is constantly lacking something. However, there are people who, regardless of their financial situation, were able to improve the quality of their lives and find satisfaction. They move forward, full of strength and energy, open to new experiences, live in harmony with nature and the people around them, and constantly improve themselves. No matter how difficult and tedious their occupations are, they do not know boredom and everything that comes their way they accept with calmness and composure. Their main strength lies in the fact that they are able to manage their own lives.
Although mankind has advanced in terms of technological progress and the accumulation of material wealth, special success in improving the internal content of our lives has not been achieved. And you can't get out of this trap if you don't take the initiative into your own hands. To overcome anxieties and troubles, a person must become independent of the social environment and learn to find rewards within himself, develop the ability to experience joy regardless of external circumstances. And, above all, it is important to remember that it is possible to gain control over consciousness only if there is a fundamental change in ideas about what is important and what is not. The roots of dissatisfaction with life are within us, and everyone must deal with them personally, on their own.
Reality is nothing but our experiences, therefore, one who can influence what is happening in his mind is able to modify it, thereby freeing himself from the threats and temptations of the outside world. Most important step in liberation from social control lies in the development of the ability to receive joy from every momentary event. If a person learns to enjoy and see the meaning in life as such, society will no longer be able to control him. A person no longer needs to fight for a bright future and spend another boring day in the hope that tomorrow, maybe something good will happen. Instead, he can just enjoy life.
Paths to Liberation
Why are we helpless in the face of chaos that prevents happiness? Firstly, wisdom cannot be presented in the form of a formula and systematically applied: each individual must go through this path independently. It is not enough just to know how to do it - you need to purposefully do it, like athletes and musicians constantly working out in practice what they have learned in theory. Secondly, the knowledge of how to control one's consciousness depends on the era. For example, the spiritual practices of yoga and Zen Buddhism were once the highest achievement, but, transferred to our time, they have lost some of their power.
A person can make himself happy or unhappy, regardless of what is actually happening "outside", simply by changing the content of his consciousness. Information enters our minds because we deliberately focus on it. The most important tool in improving the quality of our experience is attention. It is it that chooses meaningful information from the great variety of available information. Without it, no work is possible, and how we spend our attention, what thoughts, feelings, memories we let into our consciousness, determines our personal development.
mental disorder
Whenever incoming information disturbs the orderliness of our consciousness, we find ourselves in a state of internal disorder. The opposite of this state of mental disorder is optimal experience. If the information coming into our consciousness is in agreement with our goals, psychic energy flows without any obstacles. If we think for a second about the correctness of our behavior, the answer comes immediately: "Everything is going right." The ability to feel the rightness of action strengthens us, and we can pay more attention to solving external and internal problems.
Optimal Experience achieved in situations where the individual is free to direct attention to the achievement of his goals, because he does not need to fight internal disorder and defend himself from any threats. We call this state the state of the flow, because at these moments it is as if we are going with the flow, we are carried by the flow. The flow state is the opposite of mental disorder, and those who are able to experience it are more powerful and self-confident because they can direct more psychic energy to achieve their goals.
If a person is able to organize his consciousness in such a way that the state of flow arises as often as possible, the quality of his life will inevitably begin to improve, because even the most boring activities will become meaningful. Anyone who has experienced the flow state knows that the greatest joy it brings comes through strong self-discipline and concentration.
Complication and growth of personality
As a result of experiencing the flow, our personality becomes unique, because overcoming obstacles inevitably makes a person more capable, more skillful. If we have chosen a goal and concentrated all our psychic energy on it, everything that we will do will bring us joy. The state of flow is important not only because it allows us to enjoy the present, but also because it strengthens our self-confidence, which motivates us to learn new skills and make achievements for the benefit of humanity.
Joy and quality of life
There are two main strategies for improving the quality of life. We can try to adjust external conditions to our goals, or we can change our perception of external conditions so that they better suit our goals.
For example, we can increase our sense of security by buying a gun and putting a secure lock on our front door, or accepting that some risk is inevitable and enjoying an unpredictable world without letting thoughts of potential threats poison our well-being. None of these strategies will be effective if used alone.
However, people continue to believe that the solution to the problem can be found simply by changing external circumstances. Wealth, power, position in society in our culture have become conventional symbols happiness, and it seems to us that we will achieve happiness as soon as we become the owners of such symbols. Of course, fame, money or physical health can beautify life, but only if all this is harmoniously included in the already existing positive picture of the world.
Pleasure and experiences of joy
Although pleasure is one of the important components of the quality of life, it does not in itself bring happiness. Pleasure helps to maintain order, but by itself it cannot create it, i.e., transfer consciousness to a new level. There are more important experiences - experiences of joy. They are characterized by forward movement, a sense of novelty, a sense of achievement.
Joy comes, for example, from a tense game of tennis, or reading a book that offers an unexpected perspective on things, or a conversation in which we suddenly express new ideas for ourselves. After a joyful event, we feel that we have changed, that our self has grown and become more complex.
A person can experience pleasure without any effort, but it is impossible to experience the joy of playing tennis, reading a book or talking, if you do not focus all your attention on this activity. That is why joy is so fleeting, and why pleasure does not lead to personal growth. To gain control over the quality of your life, you need to learn how to derive joy from everyday activities.
Difficult activity requiring skill
The most commonly cited activities that bring joy are reading and socializing. At first glance, it may seem that the second one is an exception to the rule, since it does not require any special skills, but any shy person will tell you that this is not the case. Any occupation offers a person many opportunities for action, throws a kind of “challenge” to his skills and abilities.
The optimal experience can be obtained not only in the course of leisure activities. Mowing the lawn or waiting in the dentist's office can also be fun if you restructure your activities to include goals and rules that encourage flow. The main thing is to remember that whatever the subject does, his abilities must correspond to the complexity of the task before him.
Fusion of action and awareness. Concentration
With optimal experience, a person is so immersed in the task that his activity becomes almost automatic, and he ceases to be aware of himself as separate from the actions performed. Although the state of flow appears to be spontaneous and effortless, it is in fact often associated with great physical exertion or high mental concentration. The slightest weakening of concentration destroys it.
But while it lasts, consciousness functions smoothly, actions follow one after another. In the state of flow, there is no need to react and analyze, because the action itself, as if by magic, carries us forward. IN Everyday life we often become victims of unpleasant thoughts and anxieties that invade our consciousness unbidden. This is why the state of flow improves the quality of life: focus, together with clear goals and immediate feedback, brings order to the mind and defeats mental disorder.
In addition, when a person is truly absorbed in his activity, he does not have free time to analyze any irrelevant in this moment incentives. Having clear goals and feedback is essential to the state of flow, so until a person learns to set goals and capture feedback, he will not be able to enjoy his activity.
Optimal Experience
The most important property of optimal experience is its self-sufficiency; in other words, its main purpose lies in itself.
The optimal experience is very different from the experiences we normally experience in everyday life. Unfortunately, a lot of what we do has no value in itself. People often feel that the time spent at work is wasted, and some are not able to enjoy even in their free time. Leisure provides an opportunity to take a break from work, but it is usually a passive absorption of information and does not allow you to use any skills or explore new opportunities. Optimal experience raises the personality to a qualitatively different level: boredom is replaced by joy, helplessness turns into a feeling of own strength, psychic energy is no longer wasted on external purposes, but helps to strengthen our Self.
The sensations experienced by a person in the state of flow are so strong and gracious that he returns to this activity again and again, not stopping at possible difficulties and dangers and little interested in what he will get in the end. Sometimes such a state occurs as a result of a favorable set of circumstances, but in most cases it is the result of engaging in a structured activity or a consequence of the individual's ability to induce a state of flow, and often both at the same time.
The main purpose of flow activity is to find joy. Stream sensations seem to transfer a person to a new reality that has not yet been explored by him, expanding the horizons of his abilities. In other words, they change the personality, making it more complex. In the development of personality lies the key to understanding the meaning of flow activity.
There are people who, due to the peculiarities of the functioning of their psyche, are not capable of experiencing the flow. For example, a person who is constantly worried about what others think of him, afraid of making a bad impression or doing something wrong, loses the ability to feel the joy of being. The same applies to those people who consider everything from the point of view of their personal interests. Both extremes do not allow a person to control his attention; because of this, he cannot enjoy his activities and loses opportunities for personal growth.
The role of the family in the development of a self-sufficient personality
The family situation that stimulates the development of the ability to achieve a state of flow has five characteristics:
- Clarity in relationships.
- Parents' interest in what their child thinks and feelsat the moment, rather than worrying about which college he gets into and whether he can get a well-paying job.
- Giving children the opportunity to choose.
- A sense of community, trust between family members, allowing the adolescent to discard psychological protection and immerse yourself in activities that interest him.
- Setting worthy tasks for children, that is, creating opportunities for their improvement.
The presence of all the characteristics listed above creates the so-called self-sufficient family context, which best develops the ability to enjoy life.
flow people
Character traits inherent in self-sufficient individuals are most clearly manifested when people find themselves in difficult living conditions. Lost in the ice of Antarctica or sitting in a cell of solitary confinement, they turn the bleak reality around them into a field of vigorous activity and struggle that brings joy. According to research, such people survive because they can turn objectively dangerous and depressing circumstances into a field for research and behave as if they are in a state of flow.
They pay close attention to the smallest details of their surroundings, trying to discover hidden opportunities for action, as well as setting achievable goals for themselves and carefully monitoring their progress, after which they raise the stakes, making their tasks more difficult. When threatened by hostile circumstances, they regain a sense of control over the situation by finding a new direction for their psychic energy.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, recalling the time of his imprisonment in Lefortovo prison, told how one of his cellmates, having drawn a map of the world on the prison floor, made an imaginary journey through Asia and Europe to America, walking several kilometers a day. Such "games" were invented by prisoners at all times.
All these people have one thing in common: the presence of an important goal that stands above personal interests. With enough free psychic energy to analyze the situation objectively, they are more likely to discover new opportunities for action.
Probably, it is this trait that is the key in the structure of the personality, the goals of which are in itself. One of the greatest philosophers of our time, Bertrand Russell, described his path to happiness in this way: “Gradually I learned to be indifferent to myself and my shortcomings. My attention was increasingly focused on external objects: world events, various fields of knowledge, people to whom I felt affection. It is perhaps difficult to find a more succinct description of how one can become a self-sufficient person.
Body, mind and flow
If you learn to control the abilities of your body and streamline physical sensations, mental disorder in the mind will give way to joyful harmony. But the body does not create a state of flow by movement alone. The participation of consciousness is always necessary.
Even such a simple form of physical activity as walking can be turned into a complex flow activity, almost into an art, because a walk can have a great variety of purposes.
Greater joy can also be felt when just talking with friends, gardening, or doing some other thing you love. All these types of activities do not require special material costs, but mental energy must be invested in them, so they bring us a sense of harmony, while activities that require external resources often involve less attention and therefore do not bring such satisfaction.
Sex like a stream
When people think of joy, sex is usually the first thing that comes to mind. But the same sexual act can cause a feeling of pain, resentment, bitterness or fear, it can be perceived neutrally, it can make you feel joy or ecstasy - depending on how it relates to the goals of the individual. In essence, to enjoy sex, you just need to want it and be physically healthy, but if you do not transform sex into an activity that brings pleasure, it will quickly become boring, turn into a meaningless ritual or addiction. One of the forms of development of sexuality is the mastery of the technique of sex.
It is also important that, in addition to their own pleasure and enjoyment of the process, the lover feels genuine concern for the partner. Relationships in a couple, in order to bring joy, must become more and more difficult, partners must learn to find new opportunities in themselves and in each other. Sexuality, like every other aspect of being human, is a joy if we are willing to take control and complicate it.
Flow through sensations
Vision is most often used as a remote sensory system. The ability to see, however, can provide us with a permanent experience of joy. One of the best ways to develop perceptual skills is through the fine arts. The same can be said about music: it helps to organize the mind of the listener and thereby reduces mental disorder. Music can not only relieve us of boredom and anxiety, but, when taken seriously, can generate flow experiences.
Food, like sex, is one of the fundamental pleasures in our lives. nervous system. But many people still hardly notice what they put into their mouths, thus depriving them of the richest source of joy. To turn a biological need into a flow experience, we need to pay attention to what we eat. The development of good taste in food, like any other skill, requires the investment of psychic energy, but these energy investments will return to you a hundredfold in the form of more complex, multifaceted sensations.
Stream of thought
Alone, without the need to concentrate, we find that consciousness begins to sink into chaos. If a person does not know how to arbitrarily organize his consciousness, attention will inevitably stop at some problem that torments him. To avoid this, people tend to occupy their minds with whatever information is available, so long as it diverts their attention from turning inward and fixating on unpleasant thoughts. That is why a huge amount of time is spent in front of the TV, although this activity rarely brings joy.
Much The best way struggle with chaos in the mind is to independently control their own mental processes. One of the simplest ways of structuring consciousness is dreams and fantasies in the form of playing some sequence of events in the mind: they help to find the optimal strategy of behavior in a given situation, to see new alternatives. This, in turn, helps to increase the complexity of consciousness. Also among the many intellectual pursuits, the most frequently mentioned streaming activities are reading and solving intellectual riddles.
"Mother of Knowledge"
The most natural way to develop your memory is to pick an area that really interests you and start paying attention to key facts and figures. It is up to you to decide what will be stored in your memory, then you will control the information, and the whole process of memorizing will become not an imposed routine, but a pleasant experience.
Wordplay
A rich vocabulary and fluency are among the most important qualities of a business person, the ability to speak enriches interaction. The now almost lost art of conversation has the potential to improve the quality of life, and anyone can learn it. The main creative use of language is poetry.
It allows the mind to retain experiences in a modified and concentrated form and is therefore ideal for ordering consciousness. Writing prose has the same advantages.
friendship with history
One of the most enjoyable ways to organize the mind and bring joy is to collect, record and store information about a variety of great and small events. Having organized records of the past can improve our quality of life. The easiest thing to do is start by keeping a personal diary. As soon as a person takes the trouble to figure out which aspects of the past are of interest to him, and decides to explore them deeper, focusing on the details, the study of history becomes an inexhaustible source of flow experiences.
The joys of science
Today's science is like an expensive conveyor belt for the production of knowledge. But discoveries are still often made by people who just sit on a bench near the market, lost in their own thoughts and not noticing anything around them. It is important to remember that many great scientists did not pursue science for the sake of government grants or fame, but because they enjoyed working with the methods they invented. The thought process that makes science attractive is available to everyone. It is worth doing it first of all because it is a great way to bring order to your mind.
Work like a stream
Work has a huge impact on overall life satisfaction. If a person experiences a state of flow at work, they are more likely to be able to improve the quality of their life in general. Free labor, which requires skill, contributes to the complexity of the personality, while unskilled work, performed under compulsion, only increases the internal mental disorder. In order to avoid the latter, one must focus one's attention on the opportunities for action offered by the environment and enrich the content of the work.
Another approach is to change the work itself so that it promotes a state of flow: the more the work resembles a team game, the more joy will be received by the one who performs it, regardless of his level of development. In order to improve the quality of life through work, it is necessary to restructure the activity in such a way that it resembles flow activity as much as possible, and also hone your skills by setting achievable goals. This can greatly increase the number of optimal experiences in our lives.
Waste of time
Although people are most often eager to finish work and go home as soon as possible, they often have no idea how to spend their free time. Instead of using our physical and mental resources to dive into a state of flow, most of us spend many hours in front of the TV, watching actors and athletes. Meanwhile, mass culture and mass art consume a huge amount of our psychic energy without giving anything in return, leaving us even more devastated than before. Until a person takes responsibility for organizing both his work and his free time, both will bring him frustration.
The joy of communicating with yourself and with others
Another factor affecting the quality of life is relationships with other people. If we learn to transform them into flow experiences, the quality of our life as a whole will improve significantly. But we also value privacy and often want to be alone with ourselves. At the same time, it often turns out that as soon as this desire comes true, we sink into despondency, feel abandoned and begin to suffer because there is nothing to do. The fear of being alone is one of the most powerful human fears. It is important to realize that until a person learns to endure loneliness and even enjoy it, it will be very difficult for him to solve tasks that require full concentration.
However, the most painful events tend to be related to relationships as well. Like everything that really matters, relationships can make us happy if we live in harmony with others, but if conflicts arise, we become unhappy. Anyone who has learned to get along well with others will undoubtedly experience a significant improvement in the quality of life in general.
Pain of loneliness
Nothing spoils the mood like being alone when there is nothing to do. In this state, it is very difficult to maintain order in the mind. When no stimulus comes from outside, attention begins to wander, and chaos reigns in thoughts, as a result of which we plunge into a state of mental entropy. Worries about personal life, health, family and work are constantly present on the periphery of consciousness, waiting for the moment when there will be nothing to concentrate on. It is worth the mind to relax - and potential problems are right there. It is for this reason that television has turned out to be a boon for so many people: the flickering of the screen brings some order into the mind, and the information does not let unpleasant thoughts into the mind.
The possibility of development, which makes it possible to enjoy life at the same time, lies in the fact that out of mental disorder, which is an inevitable condition of existence, to create order more high level. This means that each new challenge that life throws at us should not be seen as something that needs to be avoided at all costs, but as an opportunity for learning and self-improvement. Only those who find a way to organize their attention and not let the internal disorder destroy their mind can survive in loneliness. A person can engage in flow activities in almost any environment, but until he learns to enjoy loneliness, a significant part of his psychic energy will be spent on hopeless attempts to avoid it.
The Joy of Friendship
Friendship brings us joy, and this requires all the same conditions that are present in other flow activities. It is necessary not only to have common goals and give each other feedback, but also solve new tasks in cooperation with another person. They may simply be to learn more about your friend, to discover new facets of his personality, and in the process of this to study deeper into himself. Friendship brings joy only if we use the opportunities for self-expression inherent in it.
If a person surrounds himself with “friends” who simply reinforce his social status, without being interested in his true thoughts and dreams and without inspiring new deeds, he deprives himself of the fullness of feelings of true friendship. Friendships rarely last on their own: they need to be developed and worked on as diligently as a career or family life.
Coping with stress
A catastrophe that prevents the achievement of the main goal in life can crush a person, forcing him to direct all his psychic energy to protect the remaining goals from further blows of fate. But it can also pose a new, clearer task - to overcome misfortune.
If a person chooses the second path, the quality of his life will not necessarily suffer as a result of the tragedy. An event that seems like a catastrophe can enrich the lives of those affected in unexpected ways. There are two main ways of responding to stress - "mature defense" and "neurotic (immature) defense". Let's say you were fired from your job. You can withdraw into yourself, start getting up late, deny the event happened and avoid thinking about it. Also you can try to splash out negative emotions on family and friends or to drown disappointment in alcohol. All these actions will be examples of immature protection.
Another response is to temporarily suppress your anger and fear, analyze the situation logically, and reformulate the problem so that it is easier to solve. For example, you will find a job where your skills are more in demand, or learn something else. In this case, you will resort to mature protection.
The ability to find something positive in adversity is a rare gift. Those who possess it are called "survivors"; they are also said to have steadfastness or courage. It is not surprising that people value this ability more than other virtues, since it contributes to survival and helps to improve the quality of life.
Those who know how to transform a hopeless situation into a new, controllable flow activity experience trials with joy and come out stronger.
Such a transformation includes three main steps:
1. Unselfish self-confidence. A person feels himself a part of what is happening around and tries to do everything possible within the framework of the system in which he must operate. If your car won't start, no matter how much you yell at it, nothing will change. A smarter approach is to admit the obvious: the car doesn't care that you urgently need to go to an important meeting. Or call a taxi, or cancel things.
2. Focusing attention on the outside world. By paying attention to what is happening around us, we reduce the destructive effects of stress. A person who pays attention to the surrounding world becomes a part of it, integrates into the system, connecting himself with it through psychic energy. This, in turn, allows him to better understand the properties of the system and find the best ways to adapt to a stressful situation. If you stay connected to what is happening, you can see new opportunities that will allow you to respond in a truly effective way.
3. Discovery of new solutions. You can focus on the obstacles and remove them - this approach is called "direct". The second way involves focusing on the situation as a whole, thinking about whether it is possible to set other, more adequate goals, and find new solutions. If you get fired, you can go to prove to the boss that he is wrong, or find a job in another department. There are opportunities for growth in almost every situation. But in order for such a transformation to become possible, a person must be ready to perceive unexpected opportunities.
Self-sufficient personality: results
The healthy, rich and powerful person has no advantage over the sick, poor and weak when it comes to establishing mind control. A self-sufficient person is distinguished by the ability to easily turn potential threats into tasks, the solution of which brings joy and maintains inner harmony. This is a person who never gets bored, rarely worries, is included in what is happening and most of the time experiences a state of flow. The main goals of a self-sufficient person are formed in her mind in the process of evaluating experiences, that is, they are created by herself.
The rules by which you can develop the qualities of such a person are simple and directly related to the flow model. IN summary they look like this:
- Set goals and pay attention to the results of your actions.
- Fully immerse yourself in the activity.
- Pay attention to what is happening around.
- Learn to enjoy momentary experiences.
Making meaning
The ability to experience the state of flow in one area does not mean at all that a person will be able to achieve it always and in everything. As long as the activities and hobbies that bring us satisfaction are not bound together by a higher meaning, we are not protected from the invasion of chaos. In order not to lose the ability for optimal experiences, a person needs to take one more, final, step in establishing control over consciousness.
This step involves turning your entire life into one streaming experience. If a person sets himself a sufficiently complex goal from which all other goals logically follow, and if he devotes all his energy to developing the skills necessary to achieve this goal, then feelings and actions will come into a state of harmony and the disparate parts of life will come together. Everything that such a person does makes sense in the present and is connected with the past and the future. This is how you can give meaning to your whole life.
Building decisiveness
Any goal must be taken seriously, and any task requires certain actions. There is a relationship between the value of a goal and the effort required to achieve it. Achieving a goal requires a lot of effort, but it is these efforts that fill the achievement of the goal with meaning.
Self-knowledge is a way by which a person can streamline his goals. An internal conflict arises due to the fact that too many conflicting desires and goals are fighting for psychic energy. The only way to overcome the psychological conflict between different goals vying for a person's attention is to separate the essential goals from the unimportant ones and build a hierarchy of priorities between them.
Before investing a significant amount of psychic energy in this or that goal, it is worth answering the questions: do I really want to do this? Does it give me joy? Will I enjoy it in the future? Is this worth the price you have to pay? If an individual has not bothered to figure out what he really wants, and his attention is so absorbed in external goals that he does not notice his own feelings, he will not be able to meaningfully plan his actions.
Return of harmony
The essence of the strategy, thanks to which you can find the meaning of existence, is to look for ways to streamline your consciousness in the experience accumulated by past generations. The culture has accumulated vast knowledge, ready to use, and it is available to anyone who wants to create harmony out of chaos.
However, most people ignore these achievements, although to do so is the same as each generation rebuilding the entire edifice of human culture. No person in their right mind wants to reinvent the wheel, fire, electricity, and a million other things that we learn about in the process of learning.
In the same way, the disregard for the information accumulated by our ancestors and the desire to independently discover worthy life goals there is a manifestation of blind arrogance. The chances of success in such an undertaking are about the same as when trying to build an electron microscope without tools and knowledge of physics. If we better understand why we are the way we are, and understand the origin of instinctual drives, social stereotypes, cultural differences - in a word, all those factors that influence the formation of consciousness - it will be easier for us to direct our energy where it should be.
Most people who have discovered difficult life topics for themselves remember that they admired some person or historical figure who served as a role model for them. Some saw new opportunities for action in a book that delighted them. In the best literary works one can draw many examples of lives built on the pursuit of a worthy and meaningful goal. Many who faced questions about the meaning of existence have regained hope by learning that others before them have attempted to solve the same problems and have been able to do so.
Having learned to separate ourselves from others, we must learn to accept the world as it is without losing our hard-won individuality. We must believe that the universe is a system governed by general laws, with which we will have to coordinate our dreams and desires. Resigned to the fact that we need to cooperate with the world around us, and not control it, we are likely to feel the relief that is familiar to the returned home exile. The problem of the meaning of life will be solved when our personal goals merge with the flow of being.
A book about the dangers of "healthy eating". Or how to live 100 years
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
Scientific editor Dmitry Leontiev
Project Manager I. Seryogina
Corrector M. Milovidova
Typesetter E. Sentsova
Cover designer Y. Buga
© Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1990
© Translation, preface. LLC Scientific and Production Company Smysl, 2011
© Edition in Russian, design. LLC "Alpina non-fiction", 2011
All rights reserved. No part of the electronic copy of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet and corporate networks, for private and public use, without the written permission of the copyright owner.
Dedicated to Isabella, Mark and Christopher
How to forge happiness: the secrets of craftsmanship
(foreword by the editor of the Russian edition)
He is truly a wise man. Slow, though sometimes resolute. Immersed in himself, although periodically blooming with a radiant smile. Weighing words and avoiding categorical judgments, but speaking and writing surprisingly clearly and transparently. More interested in others than in himself, however loving life in its various manifestations.
Today he is one of the most authoritative and respected psychologists. He is known and appreciated all over the world, and not only by his colleagues. A few years ago, the popular anthology How to Make a Life came out in the United States, offering lessons in wisdom from the lives of prominent thinkers and writers, past and present, starting with Plato and Aristotle. Csikszentmihalyi is among the heroes of this book, positioned between Salinger and Disney. The business community treats him with great attention and respect; his main place of work now is the Peter Drucker School of Management at Claremont University, California. At the turn of the century, Csikszentmihalyi, together with his colleague Martin Seligman, became the founder of positive psychology - a new trend in psychology, which is aimed at studying the patterns of a good, meaningful and dignified life.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was born in 1934 on the shores of the Adriatic, on the territory that then belonged to Italy, and now it is part of Croatia. His father was a Hungarian consul, after the collapse of fascism he became ambassador to Italy, and when the communists who seized power in Hungary in 1948 dismissed him, he decided to stay with his family in Italy, where Mihai spent his childhood and school years. Having become interested in psychology and not finding a suitable university in Italy, he flew across the ocean to get a psychological education in the United States, and after graduating from the University of Chicago, he remained to live and work in this country, where he spent his entire professional career. He is the author of one and a half dozen books, including: “The meaning of things: domestic symbols of our I”, “Creative vision: psychology of aesthetic attitude”, “Personality in evolution”, “Being a teenager”, “Becoming an adult”, “Creativity”, etc.
However, the most important book that brought him worldwide fame is precisely The Flow. Some time after its release in 1990, it was given brilliant publicity by such impressed readers as US President Bill Clinton, Speaker of Congress Newt Gingrich, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. It is included in lists such as "The 100 Best Business Books of All Time". It belongs to the rare category of "long-running" bestsellers. Having gained popularity among the mass audience immediately after its release, it continues to be reprinted almost annually and has already been translated into 30 languages.
This is an amazing book. Before I undertook to edit its translation, I read it at least twice, used it in lectures and publications, and undoubtedly appreciated it, which was facilitated by both personal acquaintance with the author and joint work with him. But only now, slowly and painstakingly going over word by word, I experienced a genuine, incomparable pleasure from the way it was written - there are no gaps between thought and word, each word is fitted to its neighbor, each phrase stands in its place. , and in this text there is not a single slot where a knife blade could be inserted. This is a sign of that rare book, the words of which do not play their game, leading a cheerful dance or, on the contrary, folding into a reinforced concrete structure, but directly and accurately express a clear and well-thought-out picture of the world. Each word is not accidental, it contains the pulse of a living thought, and therefore this whole book is like a living organism: it has structure, order, unpredictability, tension, tone and life.
What is it about? About many things. If approached formally - about happiness, about the quality of life, about optimal experiences. The category of experience is really one of the central ones for Csikszentmihalyi (under the influence of the famous American philosopher of the beginning of the last century, John Dewey), and he convincingly shows the emptiness and meaninglessness, on the one hand, of the brilliance of fame and material prosperity, on the other hand, of noble slogans and goals, if they do not give rise to a feeling of inner uplift, inspiration and fullness of life. And vice versa, the presence of such experiences may well make a person happy, deprived of many material goods and pleasures familiar to us.
Happiness and pleasure are different things, and in this Csikszentmihalyi repeats the revelations of many prominent philosophers, from Aristotle to Nikolai Berdyaev and Viktor Frankl. But he does not just repeat, but builds a detailed, coherent and experimentally confirmed theory, at the center of which is the idea of "autotelic experiences" or, simply put, flow experiences. This is a state of complete merging with your work, absorption by it, when you do not feel time, yourself, when instead of fatigue there is a constant surge of energy ... Csikszentmihalyi discovered it in his research creative people, but the stream is not the exclusive property of some special people. For three decades now, research and discussion around this phenomenon has continued, new books are being published, but one thing is clear: the state of flow is one of the most beautiful things in our life. And most importantly - unlike other similar states that from time to time fell into the focus of attention of psychologists (for example, peak experiences, happiness, subjective well-being) - the flow does not descend on us as grace, but is generated by our meaningful efforts, it is in our hands. In it, pleasure merges with effort and meaning, giving rise to an energizing active state of joy.
Therefore, the flow is directly related to the characteristics of the personality, the level of its development and maturity. Csikszentmihalyi recalls that when he was a child, he found himself in exile, while in his native Hungary everything was collapsing, one system and way of life was replaced by another. In his own words, he witnessed the disintegration of the world in which he was quite comfortably rooted at the beginning of his life. And he wondered how many adults he had previously known as successful and self-confident people suddenly became helpless and lost their presence of mind, having lost the social support that they had in the old stable world. Deprived of work, money, status, they literally turned into some kind of empty shells. But there were also people who retained their integrity, purposefulness, despite all the chaos surrounding them, and they in many ways served as an example for others, a support that helped others not to lose hope. And the most interesting thing is that these were not the men and women from whom this could be expected. It was impossible to predict which people would save themselves in this difficult situation. They were neither the most respected, nor the most educated, nor the most experienced members of society. Since then, he wondered what are the sources of strength of those people who are stable in this chaos. He considers his whole subsequent life as a search for an answer to these questions, which he could not find either in too subjective and faith-based philosophical and religious books, or in psychological research too simplified and limited in its approach. These were people who maintained their resilience and dignity in the storms of World War II, who did something impossible, and in this could be found the key to what a person is capable of at his best.
The book "Flow" is a very non-trivial approach to many problems. general psychology, primarily to the problems of the emotional life of a person and the regulation of behavior. There is no need to retell the content of the book that is in your hands, but I will note the main thing, in my opinion. Csikszentmihalyi, with convincing historical and experimental psychological material in his hands, methodically, step by step, refutes the myths of mass consumer culture and its offshoots in a higher price category - glamor. These myths are known: you don’t have to be loaded, you don’t have to take a steam bath, all the main answers to life’s tasks are simple, in order to be happy, you don’t have to think about difficulties and troubles and have more money so as not to deny yourself anything.
Despite numerous articles and books on flow for professionals, this book represents the first attempt to introduce it to the general reader by discussing the implications for everyone's life that flow from this research. However, it does not belong to the category of "do it yourself" publications. Thousands of such publications fill the shelves today bookstores explaining how to become rich, find love or lose weight. These books, like cookbooks, tell you how to solve a single, narrow problem. Even if the recipes given there work, what will happen to a person who has incredibly managed to lose weight, get rich and become attractive? He usually finds himself back at the starting position with a new list of desires, but the steel is unsatisfied. Neither the weight lost nor the wealth gained will lead to satisfaction - the problem is in the general attitude towards one's life. In the search for happiness, partial solutions do not bring success.
Strictly speaking, books, no matter how well-intentioned they may be, are not capable of giving us recipes for happiness. Because the essential condition optimal experience is the ability to constantly, at every moment of time, control what is happening in the mind, this can only be achieved through personal efforts and creativity. The book, however (and this book strives for this), can only give examples inscribed in the theory of how to make life more joyful, help readers reflect on what has been said and draw their own conclusions.
This book is not a list of instructions, but a journey into the realm of the mind, not easy, like any exciting adventure. Without some mental effort, without a willingness to reflect and puzzle over one's own experience, it is unlikely to be useful. The concept of flow will accompany us throughout the book, through the long process of gradually gaining control over our own lives. First, we will find out how the mind works and what are the possibilities of its control (Chapter 2). This is important because if we understand how this or that state of our consciousness is formed, we will take the first step towards managing it. Everything that we experience - joy, enthusiasm, pleasure, pain, longing, boredom - is represented in our minds in the form of information. If we learn to identify this information, we will be able to decide for ourselves what our life will be like.
The optimal state of consciousness is internal order. Such a state occurs when our mental energy (attention) is directed towards solving a specific realistic task and when our skills meet the requirements for this task. The process of achieving the goal streamlines consciousness, since a person is forced to concentrate his attention on the implementation of the current task, cutting off everything that is not relevant. Moments of overcoming difficulties and struggling with them give rise to experiences that give a person the greatest joy (Chapter 3). Having achieved control over his mental energy, spending it on the fulfillment of consciously chosen goals, a person becomes a more complex, more multifaceted personality. Improving his skills, challenging more and more complex tasks, he is constantly evolving.
To understand why some of our activities bring us more joy than others, we will take a closer look at the conditions necessary for the emergence of a state of flow (Chapter 4). People experiencing the flow describe it as a special state of mind, when inner harmony reigns in the mind, when this or that activity becomes interesting and significant in itself, regardless of the importance of the result standing somewhere at the end. To understand what exactly makes people feel happy, it is necessary to consider some types of human activity, often causing a state of flow, such as sports, games, art, various hobbies. However, devoting all his time exclusively to games or art, a person cannot count on a serious improvement in the quality of his life.
The ability to control one's own mind can be developed by improving both physical and sensory skills - athletics, music, yoga (Chapter 5), and the ability to operate with symbols, which underlies such fields of activity as poetry, philosophy, or, for example, mathematics (Chapter 6 ). A person spends most of his life working or socializing with friends, colleagues, or family. Therefore, the ability to experience the state of flow in professional activities (Chapter 7) and in relationships with parents, spouses, children and friends (Chapter 8) becomes an extremely important ability that determines the quality of life.
Human life is not immune from tragic events. Even those who give the impression of being happy and contented with life are often faced with serious problems. Nevertheless, the blows of fate themselves do not deprive a person of the opportunity to be happy. Whether a person can ultimately benefit from his position or be crushed by failure depends on his reaction to them. Chapter 9 describes how a person can enjoy life despite the blows of fate.
Finally, the conclusion will describe how a person can combine all kinds of experiences into one meaningful picture (Chapter 10). A person who has succeeded in this begins to feel like a true master of his life. From now on, it does not matter that he is not rich, does not have power and is overweight. Expectations and unmet needs no longer disturb him, and even the most boring activities begin to bring pleasure.
This book explores what it takes to achieve that goal. How to control consciousness, how to streamline it in order to receive joy? How to become a more complex person? And finally, how to fill life with meaning? The answers to these questions look simple in theory, but they are not easy to implement. The guide to action is clear and accessible to anyone, but many obstacles, both internal and external, stand in the way. This path is somewhat similar to the fight against excess weight: everyone knows how to do it, everyone wants it, but not everyone achieves the result. The goals we are talking about are, of course, more significant. It's not about shedding a few extra pounds, but about not missing the chance to live a worthwhile life.
Before proceeding to describe the ways to achieve the state of flow, we briefly touch on some of the difficulties, in particular those that originate in the characteristics of human nature. In old fairy tales, on the way to eternal happiness and immortality, the hero must go on a campaign and defeat fire-breathing snakes and evil wizards. This metaphor is quite applicable to the study of the psyche. I believe that happiness is so difficult to achieve, primarily because, contrary to the myth invented by mankind, the Universe was not created at all in order to satisfy our needs. Frustration is an essential part of life. As soon as we manage to fulfill some of our desires, we immediately begin to want more. Chronic dissatisfaction is the second obstacle to self-sufficiency and happiness.
To overcome these obstacles, each culture eventually develops certain mechanisms that protect a person from chaos. These include religion, art, philosophy and domestic comfort. They help us to believe that we are in control of what is happening, and give reason to be satisfied with our lot. But these protections work only for a while: after several centuries, and sometimes after several decades, religion or beliefs lose their influence and no longer provide the same spiritual support. Not finding support in faith, people, as a rule, seek happiness in all sorts of pleasures, the idea of which can be laid down at the genetic level or determined by society. Wealth, power and sex become the main goals for them. life path. However, the quality of life cannot be improved in this way. Only direct control over our experience and the ability to enjoy everything we do can overcome the obstacles that prevent satisfaction.
In this iconic book, the eminent scientist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi presents a completely new approach to the topic of happiness. Happiness for him is akin to inspiration, and the state when a person is completely absorbed interesting business, in which he realizes his potential to the maximum, Csikszentmihalyi calls a flow. The author analyzes this state on the example of representatives of various professions and finds that the emotional upsurge experienced by artists, artists, musicians is available in any business. Moreover, it is necessary to strive for it.
It is curious that the book was included in the version of Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. - M .: Alpina Non-fiction, 2013 - 464 p.
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Chapter 1
Even 2300 years ago, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle came to the conclusion that more than anything in the world, a person wants happiness. We strive only for happiness for its own sake, and any other goals - health, wealth, beauty or power - are important to us only to the extent that we expect them to make us happy.
I "discovered" that happiness is not something that happens to us at all. This is not the result of luck or a happy accident. It cannot be bought with money or achieved by force. It does not depend on the events taking place around us, but on our interpretation of them. Happiness is a state for which everyone must prepare, grow it and keep it within themselves. People who have learned to control their experiences will be able to influence the quality of their lives themselves. Only in this way can each of us come closer to being happy.
Happiness cannot be found by consciously setting such a goal. The famous Austrian psychologist Viktor Frankl brilliantly expressed this idea in the preface to his book: “Do not strive for success at any cost - the more you are fixed on it, the more difficult it is to achieve it. Success, like happiness, cannot be achieved, they come by themselves<… >as a side effect of a person's focus on something greater than himself.
But we all had to experience moments when we felt not the blows of nameless forces, but control over our actions, domination over our own destiny. In these rare moments, we feel inspiration, a special joy. These feelings remain in our heart for a long time and serve as a guide in our life. This is what we call optimal experience.
The best moments usually happen when the body and mind are stretched to the limit in an effort to achieve something difficult and valuable. We ourselves generate the optimal experience. For each of us, there are thousands of opportunities, tasks to reveal ourselves through them.
I developed the theory of optimal experience. This theory was based on the concept flow- a state of complete absorption in activity, when everything else recedes into the background, and the pleasure from the process itself is so great that people will be willing to pay just to do it.
Roots of dissatisfaction. The main reason why happiness is difficult to achieve is that the universe was created without taking into account the wishes of the comfort of the day of people. Even J. Holmes noted: “The Universe is not hostile and not friendly to us. She's just indifferent." The feeling of happiness depends on inner harmony, and not on the ability to control the forces of the universe. Most people fall prey to the inflation of pleasure that accompanies the escalator of rising expectations, some manage to avoid it. These are those who, regardless of their financial situation, were able to improve the quality of their lives, gain satisfaction, and also make those around them a little happier. Perhaps their main strength lies in the fact that they are able to manage their own lives.
Protective functions of culture. In the course of evolution, each human society gradually came to the realization of his loneliness in the world space and the unreliability of his life. To make chaotic forces surrounding nature accessible to management or at least understanding, people created myths and beliefs. One of the main functions of every culture is to protect members of society from chaos, to help them believe in their own importance and in the ultimate success of their existence.
The defense mechanisms developed in the past - the order that religion, patriotism, folk traditions and social norms brought to the world - are becoming ineffective for an increasing number of people who feel thrown into a maelstrom of chaos. The lack of internal order manifests itself in a subjective state called by some ontological anxiety, or existential horror.
People react differently to this realization. Some try to ignore it, continuing the pursuit of what should make life more enjoyable - for expensive cars, prestigious positions, luxury. But with each new success, it becomes more and more obvious that money, power, status and luxuries alone cannot improve the quality of life.
Existential problems have traditionally been dealt with by religion, so it is not surprising that today everything more frustrated people trying to find answers with her help. But nowadays it is already more difficult to recognize the concepts of the world order proposed by religions as final. The form in which religion presents its truths to people - myths, revelations, sacred texts - does not inspire the confidence of the broad masses of the population living in the era scientific progress despite the fact that the essence of these truths remains the same.
Return to experience. There is no way out of this trap unless you take the initiative into your own hands. If the existing institutions and value system no longer fulfill their supportive functions, everyone must use all available means to fill their lives with meaning and joy. To overcome the anxieties and troubles that await him in life, a person must become so independent of the social environment that he does not think exclusively in terms of social rewards and punishments. To achieve such autonomy, the individual must learn to find rewards within himself, develop the ability to experience joy regardless of external circumstances.
We grow up believing that the most important events our lives are ahead of us in the future. “We are always preparing for life,” said the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, “but we never live.”
Pleasure seeking is a response built into our genes for the survival of the species, not for our personal gain. The pleasure we experience from food is a guarantee that our body will receive the nutrients it needs. The same can be said about the joy of sex, which expresses the attitude inherent in our genes to procreate. When a man and a woman are physically attracted to each other, they usually think that this desire is a manifestation of their own intentions. In fact, in most cases, their "intention" comes from an invisible genetic code that has a purpose of its own. Since attraction is a reflex based on purely physical reactions, it must be thought that the conscious plans of the individual play a minimal role in what is happening. But unconditionally following the genetic and social instructions, we lose control over consciousness and become helpless toys of external forces. A person who is unable to resist the temptation of delicious food or drink, or who is constantly focused on thoughts of sex, cannot freely dispose of his psychic energy.
Undoubtedly, in order to survive in modern society, a person needs to work for external goals and learn to save rewards for later. However, he is not at all obliged to turn into a puppet, wholly controlled by society. The solution to this problem is to gradually free ourselves from the rewards offered by society, stop striving for them and replace them with pleasures that are in our own power. This does not mean that we should reject all of society's proposed goals; it is enough to build our own system of goals that can supplement or replace the one with which the society is trying to bribe us. If a person learns to enjoy and see meaning in the process of life itself, society will no longer be able to control it.
Paths to Liberation. simple truth, which says that the ability to control the mind determines the quality of life, has been known to mankind for a long time. Freud argued that two tyrants representing the "others" were fighting for control of the mind: the id (biological drives) and the superego ( public control). They are opposed by the Ego, which embodies the true needs of the individual, connected with his immediate environment.
Chapter 2. ANATOMY OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Like all human behavior, the functioning of consciousness is the result of biological processes. The function of consciousness is to collect and process information about what is happening outside and inside the body, on which further reactions are based. Without consciousness, we would continue to receive knowledge from the senses about what is happening around, but we would be able to react to the information received only reflexively, instinctively. Thanks to consciousness, we can synthesize new information that did not exist before, we gain the ability to dream, tell lies, compose beautiful poems and scientific theories.
I believe that of all existing models, the “phenomenological model of consciousness based on information theory” most fully covers the aspects of the work of consciousness that are of interest to us and can bring the greatest benefit for practical purposes. Phenomenological this model is called because it deals directly with the phenomena of consciousness - the events that we are aware of and interpret, and not with the anatomical structures, neurochemical reactions or unconscious intentions that caused these events. The model we propose also borrows information theory principles that can help us understand what happens in the mind. These principles include knowledge about the processes of processing, storing and reading sensory information, that is, about the work of attention and memory. “To be aware” in the framework of the proposed model means to recognize that there are certain conscious events (sensations, feelings, thoughts, intentions) and that we can direct them. Consciousness is purposefully ordered information.
Consciousness, like a mirror, reflects what our senses tell us about what is happening around and in the nervous system, but it does this selectively, actively interpreting events and imposing its own reality on them. The forces that order information in the mind, we can call intentions, or intentions. They arise whenever a person consciously wants something. We often label manifestations of intentionality with other words, such as "instinct," "need," "drive," or "desire." But all these concepts contain an attempt to explain why people behave in a certain way. "Intention" is a more neutral and descriptive word, it doesn't say Why the individual wants something, but only states that he wants. All of our intentions, whether genetically acquired or ingrained in us, are organized into a hierarchical structure of goals that determines the order of preference.
The boundaries of the possibilities of consciousness. modern science is close to accurately assessing the information processing capabilities of our central nervous system. Today it is considered proven that human brain can simultaneously process an average of about seven bits of information. We also learn how to compress and rationalize information with symbols, a function that languages, mathematics, abstract concepts and conventional images perform.
Attention as mental energy. Information enters our minds because we deliberately focus on it. It is attention that selects the relevant information from the great variety of available information; it is also responsible for retrieving the necessary memories from memory, participating in the evaluation of the event, and then in making the right decision. It seems to us appropriate to represent attention in the form of psychic energy: no work is possible without attention, and in the process of work it is wasted. How we spend our attention, what thoughts, feelings, memories we let into our consciousness, determines our personal development. This amazing energy is completely subject to us, and it is in its power to make of us what we want. That is why we have the right to consider attention as the most important tool in improving the quality of our experience.
Enter yourself. Consciousness is not a linear system, but a system with cyclic causal connections. Attention shapes personality, and personality directs attention. So, our experiences depend on where we direct our psychic energy - on the structure of attention, which, in turn, affects our goals and intentions. Now we must analyze what happens after attention brings new information into consciousness. Only once we understand this can we move on to the difficult question of how to control experiences and change them for the better.
Disordered Mind: Psychic Entropy. One of the main forces adversely affecting consciousness is the so-called mental disorder - information that comes into conflict with existing intentions and distracts us from their implementation. We call these situations different words depending on what we are experiencing: pain, fear, rage, anxiety, or jealousy. All these types of disorder cause attention to divert to unwanted objects, depriving us of the freedom to use it as we please.
Whenever incoming information disturbs the orderliness of our consciousness, endangering the existing structure of goals and priorities, we find ourselves in a state of internal disorder, or mental entropy. Prolonged stay in this state can weaken the personality so much that a person loses the ability to control his attention and achieve goals.
Ordered Consciousness: The State of Flow. Opposite to the state of psychic entropy discussed above is optimal experience. If the information entering our consciousness is in agreement with internal structure goals, psychic energy flows without any obstacles. If a person is able to organize his consciousness in such a way that the flow state arises as often as possible, the quality of his life will inevitably begin to improve, because in this case even the most boring activities will acquire meaning and begin to bring joy.
Complication and growth of personality. After experiencing the state of flow, personal organization becomes more complex than it was before. It is in increasing complexity that personal growth lies. Complexity is the result of two massive psychological processes: differentiation and integration. The first involves movement towards uniqueness, separation from others, the second strives for the opposite - to unity with other people, to the transpersonal unity of ideas and concepts. complex we call the person who manages to successfully combine both of these processes. We develop precisely when we act freely, for the sake of the activity itself, and not guided by external impulses.
Chapter 3. JOY AND QUALITY OF LIFE
There are two main strategies for improving the quality of life. The first is to try to adjust external conditions to suit our goals. The second involves changing our perception of external conditions so that they are better suited to our goals. For example, an important component of happiness is a sense of security. It can be increased by buying a weapon, installing a secure lock on the front door, moving to a safer area, or trying to influence the city authorities to increase police work. All of these actions are aimed at bringing external conditions in line with our goals. Another approach: if we accept that some risk is unavoidable, and learn to enjoy an unpredictable world, then thoughts of potential threats will not so noticeably poison our well-being. None of these strategies will be effective if used alone.
People continue to believe that the solution to the problem can be found by changing external circumstances. If only they could get a little richer, or build more muscle or find a more caring life partner, then everything would be fine.
Wealth, power, position in society have become accepted in our culture symbols happiness. In reality, the quality of life does not directly depend on our reputation and the size of our wallet. The most important thing is that we ourselves think about ourselves and what is happening to us. To improve our lives, we need to change the quality of our experiences.
Pleasure and the ability to experience joy. Although pleasure is one of the important components of the quality of life, it does not in itself bring happiness. Nutrition, sleep, rest, sex return us to a state of homeostatic balance, restore order in consciousness after the needs of the body that cause mental entropy have been satisfied. But these processes do not contribute to psychological growth and complexity of the personality. Pleasure helps to maintain order, but by itself it cannot create it; take your mind to the next level.
If we continue to think about what makes our life worthwhile, then from pleasant memories we will move on to other events and experiences that are somewhat similar to pleasure, but belong to a different category and therefore deserve a separate name. Let's call it the experience of joy. We are talking about a joyful event in the event that a person not only satisfied his needs or desires, but also managed to go beyond the usual patterns of action, achieved something unusual, which before, perhaps, could not even be imagined.
Getting pleasure does not require an investment of psychic energy, while joy is achieved only as a result of a special concentration of attention. A person can experience pleasure without any effort, if influenced electric shock on certain centers in his brain or give him a drug. But it is impossible to experience the joy of playing tennis, reading a book or talking, if you do not focus all your attention on your activity.
What is the experience of joy? There are eight main components of the experience of joy. First, the task that a person sets himself must be feasible for him. Secondly, he must be able to concentrate. Third and fourth, concentration is usually possible because the task allows you to clearly formulate goals and get immediate feedback. Fifthly, in the process of activity, the subject's enthusiasm is so high that he forgets about everyday worries and problems. Sixth, activities that bring joy allow a person to feel in control of their actions. The seventh feature of this state is that the awareness of one's Self at the moment of the action seems to disappear, but after the end of the flow episode, it becomes stronger than before. Finally, the perception of the passage of time changes: hours turn into minutes, and minutes can stretch into hours.
Usually we constantly interrupt our activities with doubts and questions: “Why am I doing this? Should I do something else?" We again and again evaluate the reasons that prompted us to take certain actions, and their expediency. And in the state of flow, there is no need to reflect, because the action itself, as if by magic, carries us forward.
Autotelic experience. The most important property of optimal experience is its self-sufficiency; in other words, its main purpose lies in itself. The term "autotelic" is derived from two Greek words: auto meaning "in itself" and telos meaning "goal". In other words, it is an activity that is performed not for the sake of a future reward, but for its own sake. When a person is engaged in an autotelic matter, his attention is focused on the activity itself, and not on its consequences. Most of our activities cannot be considered purely autotelic or exotelic (as we will call activities performed only for external reasons), they contain both features.
Unfortunately, so much of what we do has no value in itself, and we do these things only because we have to, or because we expect to be rewarded in the future. Autotelic experience, or the state of flow, elevates the personality to a qualitatively different level. When a feeling of inner satisfaction arises, a person begins to appreciate the present and ceases to be a hostage to a brighter future. But we must not forget that the state of the stream can cause dependence. Optimal experiences are energy that can be used for good or for evil. Depending on what goals it is directed to, life becomes an inexhaustible storehouse of wealth or suffering.
Much of what we call juvenile delinquency—car theft, vandalism, disorderly conduct in general—is driven by the need to experience a state of flow not available by other means. The state of flow, like everything in the world, is not something "good" in the absolute sense. It is good only insofar as it can make our life richer, more joyful and full of meaning. It is good because it strengthens and expands our Self. And the consequences of each particular episode of the state of flow must be discussed and evaluated separately and in terms of broader social criteria. Jefferson's famous aphorism "Constant vigilance is the true price of freedom" is true not only within the framework of politics. Its meaning is that we must constantly re-evaluate the value of our achievements, otherwise habits and outdated wisdom will hide new opportunities from us.
Chapter 4. FLOW CONDITIONS
Stream lessons. Basic meaning streaming activities is to find joy. Examples of such activities are games, arts, sports, and various ceremonies and rituals. Due to their structure, they help participants and spectators achieve an ordered state of consciousness that brings joy.
The French psychologist and anthropologist Roger Calois divided the games existing in the world (he uses the word "game" in a broad sense, denoting by this word any form of activity that brings pleasure) into four main classes, depending on the experiences they cause. In the group called "agon" he included games built on the principle of competition. It includes, for example, most sports. The “alea” group included activities based on the game of chance (for example, loto or dice). The designation "ilinx", or "vertigo", was given to games that disrupt our normal perception, such as riding rides or skydiving. Finally, Roger Calois referred to "mimicry" activities that create an alternative reality, such as theater, dance and art in general.
Using the proposed classification, it is easy to see that each of the four classes of games offers its own ways to go beyond the boundaries of everyday life. In agony games, a person is required to improve certain skills in order to surpass the opponent. Aleatic games are pleasurable because they give a person the illusion of being able to influence the course of future events. Dizziness is the most fast way change the state of consciousness. Mimicry exercises allow us to change our individuality through fantasy, imitation and disguise.
We have found one common characteristic that unites the many varieties of flow experience. All of them, as it were, transfer a person to a new reality that has not yet been explored by him, filling him with the spirit of pioneering, expanding the horizons of his abilities. In other words, they change the personality, making it more complex. In the development of personality lies the key to understanding the meaning of flow activity (Fig. 1). The diagram explains why this is so. Suppose the graph below describes an activity, such as playing tennis. On its axes, the levels of development of skills and the complexity of tasks are plotted. The letter A stands for Alex, a boy who is learning to play tennis. It is depicted in the diagram at four time points. At the time of the start of training, he has practically no skills whatsoever (A1). He just needs to hit the ball. This, in general, is not difficult, but Alex trains with great pleasure. After all, the level of complexity of the task just corresponds to his elementary skills. So at this level he is likely to experience a sense of flow.
Rice. 1. Why the Complexity of Consciousness Increases as a Result of Flow Experience
Over time, if he continues to train, his fitness will improve. He will be bored just hitting the ball over the net (A2). Perhaps he will find himself a more experienced partner and realize that there are more difficult tasks than just kicking the ball. At this point (A3) he will feel anxious about not handling the situation well.
Because neither boredom nor anxiety are pleasurable states, Alex wants to experience flow again. How to achieve this? It can be seen from the figure that if he is bored (A2) and wants to be in the flow again, he has only one way out - to increase the complexity of the tasks performed. By setting himself a new, more difficult goal, corresponding to his skill level - for example, defeating a stronger opponent - Alex will again be in the flow (A4).
If he is anxious (A3), he needs to further improve his skills in order to return to the state of flow.
The state in A4 can be considered more "advanced" compared to A1, because it involves more complex tasks and requires more skill from the player. However, the A4 situation, despite the complexity and joy it brings, is also not stable. If Alex continues to play, he will face either boredom due to tasks that have lost their novelty, or anxiety and frustration due to the realization of his relatively weak capabilities. The desire to have fun will again push him into the flow, but at a level of complexity exceeding A4.
This dynamic explains why flow promotes personal development. A person cannot enjoy for a long time doing the same thing. To avoid boredom, he must set himself new goals and, achieving them, improve his skills.
Flow and culture. In recent decades, social scientists have been extremely reluctant to make value judgments about a particular culture. It is considered bad form to say that one or another cultural practice, religion or way of life is better than others. The ideology of the unconditional superiority of Western industrial civilizations over technologically less developed cultures has remained in the distant past. Of course, we condemn the young Arab suicide bomber driving a truck loaded with explosives into a foreign embassy, but we can no longer feel our moral superiority over his belief that heaven awaits all warriors who sacrifice themselves. We have come to understand that our ideas of good and evil are worthless outside of our culture. Thus, a direct comparison of the cultural values of different societies turns out to be practically impossible. However, if we assume that the achievement of a state of flow is the main goal of man, then every social system can be evaluated. One society will be considered "better" than another if it enables more people to follow their goals.
The purpose of culture is to protect a person from the destructive action of chaos, to reduce the influence of chance on his experience. It is a system of adaptive reactions that have arisen in the course of evolution. Cultures prescribe norms, set goals, create principles that help us cope with life problems. At the same time, alternative goals and beliefs are inevitably cut off, and opportunities are limited.
autotelic personality. Is everyone equally capable of controlling their minds? Attention deficit prevents not only effective learning but also the ability to experience the state of flow. When a person cannot control his psychic energy, neither learning nor true pleasure is possible for him. A lesser obstacle to experiencing flow is over-focusing on the self. A person who is constantly worried about what others think of him, afraid of making a bad impression or doing something wrong, loses the ability to feel the joy of being. The same applies to people with overly pronounced egocentrism. The consciousness of such a person is completely closed to everything that does not meet the main criterion for selecting information - personal gain.
Violations of attention prevent the achievement of a state of flow due to excessive "fluidity" of psychic energy; overly developed reflection and egocentrism, on the contrary, make attention too rigid. Both extremes do not allow a person to control his attention; because of this, he cannot enjoy his activities, experiences learning difficulties and loses opportunities for personal growth. Paradoxically, a person who is excessively self-centered cannot reach a higher level of development, because all of his mental energy is directed towards achieving goals already set, instead of discovering new ones.
The obstacles to achieving a state of flow are not only within the personality itself. They are also put to us by our environment. Some of them are of natural, some are of social origin.
There are two types of social pathology that interferes with the achievement of the state of flow - this is anomie and alienation. Anomie, which literally means "absence of rules", the French sociologist Emile Durkheim called the state of society in which established norms of behavior cease to fulfill their functions. When it becomes unclear what is allowed and what is not, when there is no certainty about what deserves public approval, people's behavior becomes chaotic and meaningless. The state of alienation is in many respects the opposite situation. It occurs when society forces people to act against their own goals. In the socialist countries, one of the most serious reasons for this was the need to spend most of their free time in lines for food, clothes, tickets and in endless bureaucratic institutions.
It is interesting to note that these two social obstacles to achieving the state of flow are functionally similar to the forms of personality pathology we have already considered: impaired attention and excessive focus on oneself. On both an individual and a collective level, achieving a state of flow is prevented by fragmentation of attention (anomia and disorder of attention) or its excessive rigidity (alienation and focus on oneself). At the level of an individual, anxiety corresponds to anomie, and boredom to alienation.
The personal qualities of an adult are largely determined by his relationship with his parents in early childhood. The family situation that stimulates the development of the ability to achieve a state of flow has five characteristics. The first is clarity in relationships. Adolescents know exactly what their parents expect from them; feedback in the family is unambiguous. The second is the parents' interest in what their child thinks and feels at the moment, and not concern about which college he will go to and whether he will be able to get a well-paid job. The third feature is the opportunity given to children to choose: they feel that they can do as they please, including breaking parental rules, if they are ready to deal with the consequences. The fourth distinctive characteristic is a sense of community, trust between family members, which allows a teenager to discard psychological protection and immerse himself in activities that interest him. Finally, parents should provide their children with worthwhile tasks, the complexity of which is constantly increasing, thus creating opportunities for self-improvement.
In less ordered families a large number of energy is spent on endless negotiations and showdown, and children are trying to protect their individuality from the pressure of goals and attitudes imposed by adults.
Flow people. When we are threatened by hostile circumstances, it is necessary to regain a sense of control over situations by finding a new direction for our psychic energy - a direction beyond the control of external forces. The source of the inner strength of people in extremely difficult circumstances can be "unegocentric individualism", i.e. the presence of an important goal that is above personal interests. With enough free psychic energy to analyze the situation objectively, they are more likely to discover new opportunities for action. The narcissistic individual, concerned primarily with how to protect his self, is lost at the first sign of danger. The approaching panic does not allow him to do what he should; attention rushes inward in an attempt to restore order in consciousness, and there is no psychic energy left for interaction with external reality.
Bertrand Russell described his path to happiness in this way: “Gradually I learned to be indifferent to myself and my shortcomings. My attention was increasingly focused on external objects: world events, various fields of knowledge, people to whom I felt affection ”(see for more details). It is perhaps difficult to find a more succinct description of how one can become an autotelic person.
Chapter 5. BODY AND FLOW
Everything our body can do has the potential for joy. However, many neglect this and use their physical form to a minimum, depriving themselves of numerous opportunities to experience the flow state. As a result, the untrained body moves clumsily, the undeveloped eye gives us ugly or uninteresting images, the unmusical ear hears noise instead of music, and we can only taste the gross taste of food. If bodily functions are allowed to atrophy, life becomes substantially less enjoyable. But if you learn to control the abilities of your body and streamline physical sensations, entropy in the mind will give way to joyful harmony.
Higher, faster, stronger. Sport in its purest form is overcoming the limits of your bodily capabilities. The flow sensations obtained by using physical skills do not only occur in professional athletes. The joy of overcoming the limits of one's own abilities is not the privilege of Olympic champions. Everyone, regardless of their physical form, can jump a little higher, run a little faster and get a little stronger. The joy of discovering new, unexplored limits of one's own abilities is available to everyone.
The joy of movement. Physical education and sports are not the only ways to get joy from the body; a huge variety of activities based on rhythmic or harmonious movements allows you to achieve a state of flow. Perhaps the most ancient and significant among them is dance, since it combines accessibility with great opportunities for self-improvement.
Sex is like a stream. Sexuality is definitely one of the most versatile ways to get satisfaction. Just like in any other activity, relationships in a couple, in order to bring joy, must become more and more difficult, partners must learn to find new opportunities in themselves and in each other.
Ultimate control - yoga and martial arts. We can turn our eyes to the East in order to learn from him the ability to control our own consciousness. One of the oldest and most diverse Eastern methods of body training is the set of practices known as hatha yoga. We can consider yoga to be one of the oldest systematic methods for achieving the state of flow. The specific details of how flow experiences are achieved are unique to yoga, just as they are unique to any other flow activity, from hang-gliding to auto racing. Being the product of a specific unique culture, the path of yoga, of course, bears the stamp of its time and place of its creation. Whether yoga is the "best" way to generate optimal experiences is not only determined by its merits - one must consider the price to be paid and alternative possibilities. Is the control that yoga promises worth the expenditure of psychic energy that is required to practice it?
Another group of Eastern practices that have become very popular in the West are the so-called martial arts. These martial arts are influenced by Taoism and Zen Buddhism and are all based on the mastery of mind control. It is appropriate to consider martial arts as a specific form of flow.
Flow through the senses: the enjoyment of sight. Sports, sex, and even yoga can be pleasurable. But few go beyond these bodily pursuits to explore the almost limitless potential of other organs in the human body, although any information that our nervous system can recognize can lead to rich and varied flow experiences.
Flow in music. All cultures known to us, in order to improve the quality of life, actively used the ordering of sounds in sequences pleasant to the ear. Music as ordered sound information helps to streamline the listener's consciousness and thereby reduces mental entropy, that is, the disorder that is introduced into the consciousness by random information that is not related to current goals. Thus, music can not only relieve us of boredom and anxiety, but, if taken seriously, can generate flow experiences. Creating harmony with the help of sounds not only gives us joy, but, like the achievement of mastery in any difficult business, strengthens the personality.
The joy of taste sensations. Just like music, nutrition can affect our feelings, and knowing this is the basis of high culinary arts different countries. Food, like sex, is one of the fundamental pleasures embedded in our nervous system. In every culture, the simple process of eating calories has evolved over time into an art that brings not only the natural pleasure of satisfying a need, but also the joy of the process. In our culture, despite the recent rise in interest in haute cuisine, many people still barely notice what they put in their mouths, thereby depriving them of the richest source of joy.
Like other body-related flow activities, such as sports, sex, or visual aesthetic experiences, the development of taste sensations can give us joy only when we control the process. If a person wants to become a gourmet or connoisseur of fine wines only for fashion reasons, he essentially becomes a slave to an externally imposed goal, risking quickly losing interest in food and leaving his taste skills undeveloped. But if he approaches eating or cooking as an interesting adventure, a field for new experiments and discoveries, loves food for the sake of sensations, and not for the opportunity to impress others, he will have a lot of pleasure and many opportunities to achieve a state of flow.
Another danger that awaits a person who wants to use the sense of taste to have flow experiences is the possibility of becoming dependent on their desires. It is no coincidence that gluttony is among the seven deadly sins.
Chapter 6
The joy of life can be experienced not only through sensations. Some of our most exciting experiences originate in our minds, triggered by information that challenges our intelligence rather than our ability to experience sensations. Just as for any physical ability of our body you can find a corresponding flow activity, so each mental operation can bring a special joy that is characteristic of it. Among the many intellectual pursuits available these days, perhaps the most frequently cited streaming activity around the world is reading.
The division of flow activity into "bodily" and "mental" is somewhat artificial, since any physical activity that brings pleasure must include a mental component. It makes sense to single out a special class of activities that bring joy precisely because they streamline consciousness directly, and not through bodily sensations. These activities are symbolic in nature because they rely on everyday language, mathematics, or other abstract concepts to achieve this ordering effect. sign systems like programming languages. In order to enjoy intellectual pursuits, the same conditions are necessary as in the case of physical activity. You need to have skills in this symbolic area; there must be certain rules, purpose and feedback. Also important is the ability to concentrate and the correspondence of the complexity of tasks to the existing level of capabilities.
Left to its own devices, the mind tends to switch attention randomly, lingering on unpleasant or disturbing thoughts. If a person does not know how to arbitrarily arrange consciousness, attention will inevitably stop at some problem that torments him, at real or imagined pain, recently happened or long-lasting troubles.
To avoid this, people tend to occupy their minds with whatever information is available, so long as it diverts their attention from turning inward and fixating on unpleasant thoughts. That is why a huge amount of time is spent in front of the TV. In front of the TV screen, a person may not be afraid that his freely drifting consciousness will linger on some painful problems. It is quite understandable that such a strategy of overcoming psychic entropy quickly becomes a habit and can become addictive. A much better way to deal with chaos in the mind is to control your own mental processes.
In analyzing the conditions that contribute to the ordering of consciousness, we will first of all pay attention to the most important role in this memory, and then we will consider three symbolic systems that, if you know their rules, can give a lot of pleasure: history, science and philosophy.
"Mother of knowledge". Memory is one of the oldest mental functions underlying all other mental processes. All forms of mental flow activity are directly or indirectly dependent on memory. The oldest way of organizing information was the remembrance of one's ancestors, a genealogy that helped a person find his place in a tribe or family. It is no coincidence that in Old Testament contains so much genealogical information. The memory of departed relatives places a person in a chain that began in the mysterious past and goes into an incomprehensible future. Even though genealogy has lost its usefulness in our culture, people still enjoy thinking and talking about their roots.
For a person who has nothing to remember, life becomes significantly poorer. This fact was ignored by educational reformers who, armed with research, proved that rote learning was not effective.
If others need external stimulation - television, reading, socializing or drugs - to keep their minds from plunging into chaos, then a person with a rich memory is autonomous and self-sufficient. How can you develop your memory? The most natural way is to choose a field that is truly interesting to you - poetry, cooking, history. civil war or baseball - and start paying attention to key facts and figures.
Mind games and their rules. Memory is not the only tool needed to give form to the content of consciousness. Words play an extremely important role in managing experience. As the building blocks of most symbolic systems, they enable abstract thinking and enhance the mind's ability to store information. Next come the numbers and concepts and ground rules their combinations.
Philosophy and science arose and flourished because thinking brings pleasure. If the thinkers of antiquity did not enjoy the order created in the mind by numbers and syllogisms, such sciences as mathematics or physics, perhaps, would not have arisen at all.
A person who knows the basics mathematical analysis took a step towards independence from external incentives. He can give rise to ordered chains of thoughts, no matter what happens around. When an individual masters the symbol system well enough to start using it, he creates his own world in his mind.
Wordplay. Where does the mastery of the system of symbols begin? The oldest and perhaps the most basic system of rules is that which governs the use of words. To this day, words carry many opportunities to experience the state of flow on different levels difficulties. A striking example of this possibility is the compilation of crossword puzzles. More potential opportunities to improve the quality of life brings with it the almost lost art of conversation.
Friendship with Clio. History studies, i.e. collecting, recording and storing information about a variety of great and small events is one of the oldest pleasant ways to streamline the mind. Having organized records of the past can improve our quality of life. It is they who free us from the tyranny of the present, allowing consciousness to travel to the old times. Too often we think of history as a dry list of dates and events to remember. This subject is studied in order to appear educated, but most often without any desire. With such an attitude, history can hardly improve the quality of life. Knowledge imposed from outside meets resistance and does not bring joy. But as soon as a person takes the trouble to figure out which aspects of the past are of interest to him, and decides to explore them deeper, focusing on details that have personal meaning for him, the study of history becomes an inexhaustible source of flow experiences.
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I was somewhat taken aback by the meaning in which the authors (or translators?) use the term entropy. Entropy - in the natural sciences measure of disorder system consisting of many elements. The authors use the term entropy as a synonym for the word disorder, chaos.
Rigidity - unwillingness to change the program of action in a new situation
- Flow is a state of optimal human experience, complete merging with one's work. Brings a feeling of inspiration and special joy.
- Regardless of the difference in cultural levels, all people describe the state of joy in approximately the same way.
- People who have learned to control their experiences can themselves influence the quality of their lives.
Three decades ago, a term was born in psychology and quickly gained popularity, which evokes associations with anything but academic science - “flow” (flow). This is the state of optimal experience of a person - complete merging with one's work, absorption by it, when one does not feel time, oneself, when instead of fatigue there is a constant surge of energy ...
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi discovered it while researching the lives of creative people, but “flow” is not the exclusive property of some special people. The "stream" does not descend on us as grace, but is generated by our meaningful efforts, it is in our hands. And the state of “flow” is one of the most beautiful things in our life.
Dominion over destiny
We all have experienced moments when we feel not the blows of nameless forces, but control over our actions, dominance over our own destiny. In these rare moments, we feel inspiration, a special joy. These feelings remain in our heart for a long time and serve as a guide for our life.
When a sailor on the right course feels the wind whistling in his ears, the sailboat glides over the waves, sails, sides, wind and waves merge into harmony that vibrates in the sailor's veins. When the artist feels that the colors on the canvas, having come to life, are attracted to each other and a new living form suddenly born in front of the astonished master. When a father sees his child for the first time responds to his smile with his own.
This, however, does not only happen when external circumstances are favorable. Those who survived the concentration camps or faced mortal danger say that often, despite the seriousness of the situation, they perceived ordinary events somehow fully and vividly, for example, the singing of a bird in the forest, the completion of hard work, or the taste of a loaf of bread shared with a comrade. .
Happiness
Happiness is not something that happens to us at all. This is not the result of luck or a happy accident. It cannot be bought with money or achieved by force. It does not depend on the events taking place around us, but on how we interpret them.
Happiness is a state for which everyone must prepare, grow it and keep it within themselves. People who have learned to control their experiences will be able to influence the quality of their lives themselves. Only in this way can each of us come closer to being happy.
Optimal Experience
Contrary to popular belief, the best moments of our lives do not come to us in a state of relaxation or passive acceptance. Of course, relaxation can also be pleasurable, for example, after hard work. But the best moments usually happen when the body and mind are strained to the limit in an effort to achieve something difficult and valuable.
Both the optimal experience itself and the conditions for its occurrence are the same for all cultures and peoples.
We ourselves create the optimal experience: when a child places the last cube with trembling fingers on top of the tallest tower he has ever built, when a swimmer makes a last effort to break his record, when a violinist masters the most difficult musical passage.
For each of us, there are thousands of opportunities, tasks through which you can reveal yourself. The immediate sensations experienced in these moments do not have to be pleasant. During the decisive swim, the athlete's muscles may ache from exertion, his lungs burst from lack of air, he may pass out from fatigue - and yet these will be the best moments of his life.
Favourite buisness
The first surprise was the high similarity of sensations experienced by people during the time when they were doing their favorite thing and they did it well. Thus, a swimmer crossing the English Channel experienced feelings very similar to those experienced by a chess player during an intense tournament, or those experienced by a climber overcoming a difficult section of rock on his way to the top.
A musician working on a complex musical passage, a black teenager from the poor neighborhoods of New York participating in the finals of the basketball championship, and many, many others spoke about such impressions.
Regardless of the difference in cultural levels, the degree of economic well-being, people described the state of joy in the same way.
The second surprise was that, despite the difference in cultural levels, degree of economic well-being, social affiliation, gender, age of these people, they all described the state of joy in approximately the same way. At the same time, their activities were very different: an elderly Korean meditated, a young Japanese rushed on a motorcycle with a gang of rockers, a resident of an alpine village cared for animals, but the description of experiences almost coincided.
Moreover, when explaining why this activity brings them joy, people pointed to similar reasons. It can be said with confidence: both the optimal experience itself and the conditions for its occurrence are the same for all cultures and peoples.
Joy in everyday life
In the course of the development of mankind, each culture has developed certain protective mechanisms that make it easier for a person to exist. This includes religion, art, and philosophy. One of their tasks was to help a person cope with the destructive effects of universal chaos, to help believe that a person can control what happens to him, to help him feel satisfied with life and destiny.
However, such mechanisms provide only temporary protection. Over time, established religious beliefs wear out, losing their ability to provide the peace of mind we need.
The key to happiness lies in the ability to control yourself, your feelings and impressions.
Deprived of spiritual support, people often find a solution to life satisfaction in collecting all sorts of pleasures and entertainments based on genetic programs or determined by society. Many today go through life driven by a desire for wealth, power, or sex.
However, the quality of life cannot be improved in this way. The key to happiness lies in the ability to control yourself, your feelings and impressions, thus finding joy in the everyday life around us.
Give meaning
In order to turn your whole life into one vivid and exciting “streaming” experience, it is not enough just to learn to control the content of your consciousness at any given moment. It is also necessary to have a global system of interconnected life goals that can give meaning to each specific business that a person is engaged in.
If you simply switch from one type of flow activity to another without any connection between them and without any global perspective, then it is very likely that, looking back at your life, you will not find meaning in it. The task of the "flow" theory is to teach a person to achieve harmony in all his endeavors.
Goals are in yourself
An "autotelic personality" is what we call a person who is able to turn real or potential threats into joyful tasks. This is a person who never gets bored, rarely worries, pays attention to what is happening around him, and, having taken up any business, is easily carried away by it, entering into a state of flow.
The term “autotelic personality” itself means “a personality whose goals are in itself”, it reflects the self-sufficiency, autonomy of the personality, its ability to independently set goals. For most people, goals are usually set by biological instincts or shaped by society, that is, the sources of goals are "outside".
In an autotelic personality, most of the goals stem from a conscious evaluation of their experiences and reflect their true needs. The autotelic personality is able to transform the chaos of the external environment into an experience of "flow".
Live "against"
Examples of how people find “flow” in life, despite the misfortunes that have fallen to them, have been collected and processed by Fausto Massimini, a professor at the University of Milan. One of the groups he studied included young people who, as a result of injuries or accidents, received paralysis of the limbs. One of the most surprising results of his research was that, even years after the misfortune that happened to them, these people ambiguously assessed tragic case that changed their lives.
On the one hand, it was a tragedy. But on the other hand, it was she who opened for them an unknown, much more perfect world - the world of "limited choice". Those patients who were able to cope with the new challenges and problems that arose as a result of their injury spoke of having clear and distinct goals in life that they did not have before. At the same time, young people felt real pride from the fact that they learned to live not "thanks" but "despite".
The Eight Components of "Flow"
When people describe their experiences in moments of joy, they mention at least one of the following components (and often all eight):
- Feasibility of activities, attainability of the goal, solvability of the problem.
- The ability to concentrate on what the person is doing.
- Clear goals.
- Clear and immediate feedback to correct movement towards the goal.
- Complete preoccupation with the problem, freeing consciousness from the worries and anxieties of everyday life.
- Feeling of complete control over what is happening.
- The absence of a person in the stream of thoughts about himself (however, after a person has been in the "stream", his individuality becomes stronger, more vivid).
- The feeling of the passage of time in the process of "flow" can vary widely: seconds stretch like hours, hours fly by like seconds.
The combination of all these conditions causes that feeling of deep joy, for which people who have experienced it are ready to spend an incredible amount of effort and time again and again.
About the expert
The author of the term and theory of "flow", one of the most authoritative and respected psychologists in the world. Professor at Claremont College, author of a dozen and a half books, including the famous "Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience" ("Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience", Harper and Row, 1990).
