Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
- Nov 3, 2018
- 5 min read
Updated: Jun 11
★★☆☆☆
For scientists and researchers, it is, of course, not enough to observe phenomena and draw what appear to be fairly obvious conclusions. No, such occurrences must be researched to determine whether what we think is happening is what is actually happening. In that sense, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience is (for now, anyway) the logical conclusion of a series of books I’ve read over the past couple of months—The Art of Peace, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life, and The Book of Hygge: The Danish Art of Contentment, Comfort, and Connection—all based, more or less, on living a better life. Whether by focusing on inner peace, reevaluating unhealthy values, or finding ways to connect and be present in the moment, each book approaches its variation on the theme from different perspectives, from spiritual to existential to practical. None, however, have concerned themselves with the psychology behind achieving such positive states, and how a person might apply those principles and make possible the transition from theory to practice.
Flow is the result of decades of research on the positive aspects of human experience—joy, creativity, the process of total involvement with life that Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi calls “flow.” According to the author, this book is neither stylized academic prose nor pop-psychology self-help guide, nor is it filled with insider tips on how to be happy (which, if not readily apparent, isn’t possible in any case). Despite the absence of such scholarly devices as footnotes and references in the text (there is, however, an extensive notes section at the end), Csíkszentmihályi is clearly a researcher, and his style does not adequately escape the dry academia I recall having to write myself as a psych undergrad.
So, yeah, the book is a bit of a bore to read, but not just because the prose lacks personality. It’s also because of what I alluded to at the top: Flow is 240 pages covering decades of research that doesn’t tell us much more than what seems fairly obvious (and is something I just said to a colleague recently at work): We may not be able to control every event, but we can control how we react to them. That is, if we can control our consciousness by ordering the information that enters it (and what does not), we can “discover true happiness and greatly improve the quality of our lives.” Such a blunt assessment might be a bit unfair, but a 10,000-word “Psychology Today” article, though it no doubt would have failed to cover the cost of the thousands of interviews conducted, would have more than sufficed.
What then of the other 220 pages? For what it’s worth, here are my highlights:
The most important step in emancipating oneself from social controls is the ability to find rewards in the events of each moment. Because what we experience is reality, we can transform reality to the extent that we influence what happens in consciousness, freeing ourselves from the threats and enticement of the outside world. As Marcus Aurelius wrote, “If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgement of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgement now.”
Loss of self-consciousness does not involve a loss of self, only a loss of consciousness of self. What slips below the threshold of awareness is the concept of self, the information we use to represent to ourselves who we are. Being able to forget temporarily who we are seems to be very enjoyable. When not preoccupied with our selves, we actually have a chance to expand the concept of who we are. Loss of self-consciousness can lead to self-transcendence, to a feeling that the boundary of our being has been pushed forward.
The key element of an optimal experience is that it is an end in itself. Even if initially undertaken for other reasons, the activity that consumes us becomes intrinsically rewarding. The term here is “autotelic experience,” and refers to a self-contained activity, one that is not done with the expectation of some future benefit, but simply because the doing itself is the reward. Teaching children in order to turn them into good citizens is not autotelic, whereas teaching them because one enjoys spending time with children is. What transpires in the two situations is ostensibly identical. What differs is that when the experience is autotelic, the person is paying attention to the activity for its own sake; when it is not, the attention is focused on its consequences.
The difference between someone who enjoys life and someone who is overwhelmed by it is a product of a combination of external factors (e.g. healthy or sickly, rich or poor, strong or weak, powerful or oppressed) and the way a person has come to interpret them—whether the person sees challenges as threats or as opportunities for action. The “autotelic self” is one that easily translates potential threats into enjoyable challenges, and therefore maintains inner harmony. There are four rules for developing such a self: setting goals, becoming immersed in the activity, paying attention to what is happening, and learning to enjoy immediate experience. Being in control of the mind means that literally anything that happens can be a source of joy.
It is not sufficient to merely learn how to control moment-by-moment states of consciousness. It is also necessary to have an overall context of goals for the events of everyday life to make sense. If we move from one flow activity to another without a connecting order, it will be difficult at the end of one’s life to look back and find meaning in what has happened. To create harmony in whatever one does, it is a task that involves transforming the entirety of life into a single flow activity, with unified goals that provide constant purpose.
My 12-year-old self wants to reply, “No duh,” but I know better. Still, this feels like a book that the author didn’t want languishing in the reading lists of other college professors, even if that’s precisely where it belongs. The front cover says “national bestseller,” and the back has the New York Times Book Review “Notable Book of the Year” seal, but I have a hard time imagining people flocking to this book for any reason—whether in 1990, when it was originally published, or in 2008, when this edition was printed. This technically factual but substantively misleading quote from (surprise!) the New York Times Book Review on the front may have had something to do with it, however, “Important … Illuminates the way to happiness.” I’m waiting for Ashton Kutcher to pop out and exclaim, “You just got punked!”
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