Summer Reading Group 2022: FLOW (post #1)

This summer my PhilosophyMeetup group  is doing a reading group of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book FLOW: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.  So I will post 3 blog posts on this book, to summarize some insights from the chapters we are reading and come up with a few questions for the group members to ponder before we meet.

Csikszentmihalyi begins Flow by noting that this book is not written as a popular book with promised secrets for being happy.  No such book could exist because, argues Csikszentmihalyi, “the joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe” (xi).  What the book does offer is it presents general principles, and some concrete examples of how these principles have been used, which can add joy and meaning to our lives.  The book summarizes decades of research on these topics.

Chapter 1 begins by noting the profound insight of one of my favourite philosophers- Aristotle- who claimed that happiness has intrinsic value and that other goals- like wealth, power and health- are pursued because we expect them to make us happy.  Despite the significant improvements in our health and economic prospects since the time of the Ancient Greeks, the problems of anxiety and boredom remain. 

Csikszentmihalyi states from the start one of the key insights he has learned from studying when people feel most happy- “It does not depend on external events [e.g. good fortune], but, rather, on how we interpret them” (2).

Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person.  People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy. (2)

            The path to more joy, meaning and fulfillment in life, argues Csikszentmihalyi, begins by achieving more control over the contents of our consciousness.  The focus of Chapter 1 is on consciousness- how does consciousness work? And how is it controlled?

            “The function of consciousness is to represent information about what is happening outside and inside the organism in such a way that it can be evaluated and acted upon in the body” (24).  It is consciousness that allows us to daydream and write fiction and love poems.  Csikszentmihalyi argues that the most important trait in life is the ability to preserve through adversity, “to transform hopeless situations into challenges to overcome” (24).  To be able to exercise this trait, Csikszentmihalyi believes we must find ways to order our consciousness, so that we have some control over our thoughts and feelings.  He emphasizes the importance of psychic energy and focused attention.  When we drive down the highway we pass hundreds of cars without ever really noticing anything about any particular car.  If someone asked you how many yellow cars, or large trucks, you drove past in the last 30 minutes of driving we would be strained to make an estimated guess.  This is because such details do not enter our consciousness, or if they do they are at the margins of it and thus quickly forgotten.  This would of course change if we played a game, as I use to as a kid with my siblings on long family drives, to see how many yellow vehicles drove by us on the highway.  In that case our attention was focused on the colour of the vehicles around us.  In fact, we often would get immersed in this game, which made the long drives pass more quickly.  It was more fun to play this game than stare off into the open sky waiting for the long family drives to be over.

            Csikszentmihalyi claims that it is helpful to think of our attention as psychic energy.  And “we create ourselves by how we invest this energy” (33).   “Disorder in consciousness” is the label Csikszentmihalyi gives to psychic entropy, often manifest as anxiety, fear, rage etc.  Such psychic disorders arise when “information conflicts with existing intentions, or distracts us from carrying them out” (36).  For example, consider two examples of psychic entropy, one in the work place and the other in dating.  In work a person may be distracted from their work because they are too focused on a co-worker they have some conflict with, or an upcoming work assignment deadline.  Ruminating about these aspects of work can distract one from actually doing one’s work, and create more negative moods/experiences than need be. 

In the context of dating consider the anxious person who goes on a first few dates with a new potential romantic partner but wants reassurances that the other person is serious about them or that they are a good long-term match.  These anxieties compel them to interview or interrogate the love prospect vs having fun and simply being present to the dating experience without an attachment to the outcome of the dating process.  Such anxious/controlling behaviours can actually repeal vs attract potential romantic partners.  It is called “falling in love” because deep and meaningful emotional connections take time to grow and develop, and they cannot be forced by anyone. 

            Csikszentmihalyi argues that prolonged exposure to psychic entropy can weaken our sense of self, so that we no longer invest our attention in the fulfillment of work or finding a potential partner.

            The opposite state of psychic entropy is optimal experience.  This occurs “when the information that keeps coming into awareness is congruent with goals” (39).  This as a process in which our physic energy/attention is invested in realistic goals, and when our skills match opportunities for action (6).   We achieve flow in such a state. Csikszentmihalyi gives the example of a factory worker named Rico.  Rico worked on an assembly line and, like an Olympic athlete, he aspired to improve his time and skills so that over the years he has become more proficient with performing the same task hundreds of times a day.  Rather that finding his work boring and being detached from the activity, Rico’s state of mind helps him become immersed in the activity.

            Csikszentmihalyi claims that following the flow state our organization of the self becomes more complex.  This is due to two psychological processes- differentiation and integration.  Differentiation is a process by which we separate ourselves from others, whereas integration is the opposite of this and involves a union with others.  “A complex self is one that succeeds in combining these opposing tendencies" (41). Flow facilitates differentiation because we feel more unique as our skills are fined and developed.  And flow facilitates integration because it involves activities that make us experience a harmony with other people and the world.

Chapter 3 is devoted to the themes of enjoyment and quality of life.   Csikszentmihalyi contends that there are two main strategies that we can deploy to improve the quality of life, and the key is to utilize both vs opting for just one of the two.  One strategy is to try to shape the external conditions of life to match our goals.  The second strategy is to change how we experience external conditions to make them better fit our goals.  He provides the example of security.  To feel more secure a person might buy a gun, never go out late at night, pressure the local municipality to do more to tackle city crime, etc.  Such strategies fixate on trying to align the external environment with the goal of feeling secure.  A different strategy is to modify our beliefs and understanding of what security is.  We may accept that a sense of perfect security is illusory, that accepting some degree of risk to our safety is inevitable in life.

            Csikszentmihalyi makes a contrast between pleasure and enjoyment.  “Pleasure is a feeling of contentment that one achieves whenever information in consciousness says the expectations set by biological programs or by social conditioning have been met” (45).  An example would be the pleasant feeling we enjoy when eating a meal we like when hungry.  By contrast, enjoyable events “occur when a person has not only met some prior expectation or satisfied a need or desire but also gone beyond what he or she has been programmed to do and achieved something unexpected, perhaps something even unimagined before” (46).  Such events possess a forward movement, they elicit a sense of novelty or accomplishment.  For example, playing in a competitive sporting event, or reading a book that opens our minds to new insights.  Or engaging in a challenging intellectual discussion and debate that compels us to express beliefs or assumptions we did not realize we held. 

            Pleasure can be experienced with minimal or no effort- stick the chocolate in your mouth, chew and swallow!  But enjoyment cannot be realized in this way.  Csikszentmihalyi claims that enjoyment cannot be realized unless our attention is fully concentrated on the activity (e.g. reading, conversing or playing).

            Csikszentmihalyi identifies the following 8 major components of enjoyment:   

1.     The experience usually occurs when we confront tasks we have a chance of completing.

2.     We must be able to concentrate on what we are doing.

3.     The concentration is possible because the task undertaken has clear goals.

4.     The task provides immediate feedback.

5.     One acts with deep but effortless involvement that removes from awareness the worries and frustrations of everyday life.

6.     They allow us to exercise a sense of control over our actions.

7.     Concern for the self disappears, yet paradoxically the sense of self emerges stronger after the flow experience is over.

8.     The sense of duration of time is altered; hours pass by in minutes, and minutes can stretch out to seem like hours. (49)

“The combination of all these elements causes a sense of deep enjoyment that is so rewarding people feel that expending a great deal of energy is worthwhile simply to be able to feel it” (49).

As an academic I am very fortunate to have a career that permits me to enjoy a “flow” intense life.  I will expand on the examples of writing academic journal articles and teaching.  When I sit down to write a new journal article I believe I have some chance of accomplishing this task.  I have published over 50 articles in the past.  But success is not guaranteed.  Most journals have a high rejection rate, especially in the top ranked journals.  So the process often involves many (often very painful) rejections and revisions before being realized.  Writing can also take a long time.  The longest time it took me to research, write and revise before appearing in print a journal article was this piece that took 9 years, and this book took 16 years.  By contrast this piece was my quickest, which only took a long weekend to write (but then 2 more years to appear in print).  Writing academic research takes immense concentration, and there are clear goals (i.e. publication, advancing the debates in a novel direction, contributing new insights/arguments, etc.).  There is (often delayed vs immediate) feedback.  Referee feedback on my journal submissions have ranged from 4 days to over 12 months.  Academics do get to exercise a sense of control over our actions, referees and editors may encourage, even demand, revisions before acceptance but the decision to make these changes are ultimately up to us.  My sense of self nearly disappears when I am in the intense creative stage of writing.  3-4 days may pass and I have really loss sense of what day in the week it is, or I forget to have a meal, clean the house, etc.  I am so immersed in the activity other things fade, temporarily, from my consciousness until I work out my ideas.  I cannot stay in this stage indefinitely (3-4 days at most), and I need a break once I have the breakthrough that enables me to get most of my ideas worked out in writing.

 I also experience a sense of flow in teaching, especially in my large lecture course of around 270 students.  Lecturing requires giving attention to the material, being attuned to the audience (ready to answer questions), the puzzled looks, or laughs at my jokes provide immediate feedback. The time (at least for me, the student experience may be very different!) often flies by and I cannot believe the 2 hour class is over so quickly.  I have not given a large lecture since March 2020 and miss it dearly.  It adds so much enjoyment to my life, online teaching does not replicate the enjoyment experience of in-class lecturing.  I can experience some elements of flow recording a video lecture (it does require great concentration, etc.) but it lacks the social interaction which is a crucial element of the Socratic nature of in-person teaching.

To encourage the reading group members to think of some concrete personal examples that engage with the material in the first three chapters of the book I invite you to ponder the following 3 questions:

1. Can you think of examples from your own personal life where either your control or lack of control of your inner experiences impacted the quality of your life?  Perhaps examples from jobs you did at work, or personal relationships, or hobbies. For me I can think of many summer jobs I did that involved tedious manual labour that I made more engaging for myself by trying to improve and outperform myself [like the example of Rico in the book].  And having experienced divorce and re-entering the dating pool I can think of many examples of thoughts, beliefs and attitudes that have impeded and improved the quality of my life.  

2. Which activities provide you with “optimal experience”?  Have these changed over time or is their a continuity with them since your childhood or adolescence?

3.  Can you think of specific examples of “flow” activities where specific aspects of the  8 components Csikszentmihalyi identifies are clearly present to you?  For me some     clear examples are exercise, cooking, reading, writing, intellectual conversations, and  playing sport (and writing blog posts like this one!).

Cheers

Colin