7. HOW DO I GO WITH THE FLOW?

the notion of "flow" was first proposed by the prolific psychologist mihaly csikszentmihalyi. in his article "materialism and the evolution of consciousness," csikszentmihalyi opts to cover a "broad conceptual framework" before addressing more specific topics, including flow. this framework, he claims, is a "theory of life" based on three simple, self-evident axioms:

1. what we call life is a sequence of events in consciousness – that is, experiences (thoughts, emotions, sensations, etc.) that take place over the life-span.

2. in order to appear in consciousness, experiences require the allocation of psychic energy, that is attention. psychic energy, however, is limited by the information-processing capacity of the brain.

3. therefore, the quality and content of a person’s life depend on what he or she has paid attention to over time. (kasser 92)

damn. why didn't we realize this before? well, we were busy -- busy paying attention to numerous things aside from a theory of life. were such things worth our attention? let's find out...

the most worthwhile experience, according to csikszentmihalyi, is flow. this experience entails, "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. the ego falls away. time flies. every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost" (geirland). athletes call it "being in the zone"; religious mystics call it being in "ecstasy"; artists call it being in aesthetic "rapture"; and the average person calls it good ol' "enjoyment" ("finding," peterson 67).

flow can occur in all sorts of experiences, at work or play, but usually involves specific components:

-- we have clear goals.

-- we have immediate feedback.

-- challenge is balanced by our skills.

-- there are no distractions.

-- our action and awareness are merged.

-- we lose our self-consciousness.

-- normal time disappears.

-- the process has its own meaning (csikszentmihalyi creativity 111-113)

not all of these conditions are necessary for a flow experience. psychologists have learned that flow is very likely to occur when, quite basically, there is an optimal balance between skill and challenge (peterson 67). while almost any activity can thus produce flow, csikszentmihalyi maintains that people most often report it during their favorite activities -- gardening, listening to music, bowling, cooking a good meal (33). reading, exercising, and playing sports and games are especially popular flow activities (finding).

only a minority of us, however, currently experience flow regularly. if you ask a sample of typical americans, "do you ever get involved in something so deeply that nothing else seems to matter and you lose track of time?" roughly one in five will say that this happens to them as much as several times a day, whereas about 15 percent will say that this never happens to them ("finding"). even those who do experience flow, however, are not especially proactive about fostering it. for example, csikszentmihalyi found that american teenagers experience flow about 13 percent of the time that they spend watching tv, 34 percent of the time they do hobbies, and 44 percent of the time they are involved in sports and games. yet these same teenagers spend at least four times more of their free hours watching tv than doing hobbies or sports. similar ratios were found for adults ("finding").

the point here, however, is that we need to make flow happen -- we need to find it, and then find it over and over again. as csikszentmihalyi explains, "when a person cannot build a self based on flow, he or she tries to build a self with the help of material goals and material experiences. these include competitive striving for wealth and power and seeking pleasure in its various forms, such as passive leisure and consumer behavior" (kasser 101). such materialist strivings are associated with lower levels of life satisfaction and self-esteem (102). plus, passive leisure and consumer behavior are hardly pleasurable; csikszentmihalyi claims that people very rarely report flow in disengaging activities -- even if they're commonly considered "relaxing" ("finding"). still, however, we continue to settle -- continue to convince ourselves that video games, idle gossip, and sprees after sprees keep us happy enough ("finding").

but happy enough? what happened to more than enough? what happened to excess? "just enough" isn't an american typicality. why don't we want, like everything else, an abundance of quality experiences -- of life at its finest?

according to csikszentmihalyi, people commonly report that flow experiences demand too much ("finding"). a basketball game requires making social arrangements. playing the piano takes practice. reading a book entails focused attention. all flow-producing activities require an initial investment of effort before they become enjoyable. if a person is too tired, anxious, or simply unwilling to overcome that initial obstacle, he or she opts to settle for something that, although less enjoyable, is more accessible ("finding"). so americans reason that flow takes too much work?! i'm confused. aren't we addicted to work?!

yes, but not this kind -- not the kind that enables us to reap real rewards. we prefer to expend our energies elsewhere -- namely, on draining jobs and unfulfilling pastimes. such preferences simply don't make sense. thus csikszentmihalyi advises that "we must then transfer some psychic energy each day from tasks that we don't like doing, or from passive leisure, into something we never did before, or something we enjoy doing but don't do often enough because it seems too much trouble... this sounds simple, but many people have no idea which components of their lives they actually enjoy" ("finding"). i've already mentioned this problem numerous times. now, however, i want to expound upon the solution: mindfulness, moderation, and flow. mindfulness gives us an awareness of what we like and don't like. moderation gives us freedom to do more of what we like. and flow, lastly but essentially, is the best way of doing what we like.

not all forms of leisure are created equal. some diminish our quality of life, and others enhance it. csikszentmihalyi claims that too many americans opt for the latter. in his words, "many people will say that this advice is useless to them, because they already have so many demands on their time that they absolutely cannot afford to do anything new or interesting. but more often than not, time stress is an excuse for not taking control of one's life... how many of our demands could be reduced if we put some energy into prioritizing, organizing, and streamlining the routines that now fritter away our attention? one must learn to husband time carefully, in order to enjoy life in the here and now" ("finding").

life, as explained by csikszentmihalyi, is a simple matter of two finite yet incredibly valuable resources: time and attention. likewise, the quality of life is a simple matter of going with the flow -- our own flow. this flow has little, if anything, to do with mainstream culture. instead, it involves the joys that we, as unique people with unique tastes, actively choose to foster. in this sense, then, the key to more life is as individual as we are.