Chapter 4 - Conditions of Flow

Introduction

• This chapter will explore those particular activities that are likely to produce optimal experiences, and the personal traits that help people achieve flow easily.

Flow activities

• what makes certain activities conducive to flow is that these were designed to make optimal experience easier to achieve. [making music, rock climbing, dancing, sailing, chess, etc]
• they facilitate concentration and involvement by making the activity as distinct as possible from the so called "paramount reality" of everyday existence
• roger caillois has divided the world's games into four broad classes
  • agnon - games that have competition as their main featuer - sports
  • alea - all games of chance - bingo
  • ilinx - vertigo - activities that alter consciousness by scrambling ordinary perception - skydiving
  • mimicry - activities in which alternative realities are created - theater
• consciousness cannot be expanded; all we can do is shuffle its content, which givesus the impression of having braodened it somehow
• ona graph of skill and challenges, only skills and challenges that are matches provide flow experiences. If too skilled, boredom sets in. If too challenege, anxiety sets in. Starting anything usually induces flow expereinces.
• if fact, flow and religion have been intimately connected from earliest times. Many of the optimal experiences of mankind have taken place in the context of religious rituals
• Because flow activities are freely chosen and more intimately related to the sources of what is ultimately meaningful, they are perhaps more precise indicators of who we are.

Flow and culture

• since every evaluation across cultures must necessarily involve at least one set of values foreign to one of the cultures being evaluated, the very possibility of comparison is ruled out
• A starting point would be to say that one society is "better" than another if a greater number of its people have access to experiences that are in line with their goals
• a second essential criterion would specify that these experiences should lead to growth of the self on an individual level, by allowing as many people as possible to develop increasingly complex skills
• pygmies of the Itari forest described by Colin Trnball
• Great Shring at Ise, south of kyoto
• each generation needed to make its own revolution for its members to stay actively involved in the political system ruling their lives
• most fall short, either by making survival too strenuous a task, or by closing themselves off into rigid patterns that strifle the opportunities for action by each succeeding generation
• cultures are defensive constructions against chaos, designed to reduce the impact of randomness on expereince
• cultures prescribe norms, evolve goals, build beliefs that help us tackle the challenges of existence. In so doing, they must rule out many alternative goals and beliefs and there by limit possibilities; but this channeling of attention t a limited set of goals and means is what allows effortless action within self-created boundaries
• games fill out the interludes of the cultural script. Theenhance action and concentration during "free time" when cultural instructions offer little guidance and a person's attention threatens to wander into the uncharted realms of chaos
• despite ambiguous findings, all large scale surveys agree that citizens of nations that are more affluent, better education, and ruled by more stable governments report higher levels of happiness and satisfaction with life.
• Althought average americans have plenty of free time and ample access to leisure activities, they do not, as a result, experience flow often
• one of the most ironic paradoxes of or time is this great availability of leisure that somehow fails to be translated into enjoyment
• opportunities alone, however, are not enough. we also need the skills to make use of them. andwe need to know how to control consciousness - a skill that most people have not learned to cultivate
• the second condition that affects whether an optimal experience will occur or not: an individual's ability to restructure consciousness so as to make flow possible

Autotelic personality

• It is not easy to trnsform ordinary experience into flow, but almost everyone can improve his or her ability to do so.
• some individuals might be constitutionally incapable of experiencing flow. psychiatrists describe schizophrenics as suffering from anhedonia, which means 'lack of pleasure'
• when a person cannot control psychic energy, neither learning not true enjoyment is possible
• as less drastic obstacle to experiencing flow is excessive self-consciousness. A person who is constantly worried about how others will perceive her, who is afraid of creating the wrong impression, or doing something inappropriate, is also condemned to permanent exclusiong from enjoyment
• so are people who are excessively self-centered. A self-centered individual is usually not self-conscious, but instead evaluates every bit of information only in terms ofhow it relates to her desires. For such a person , everything is valueless in itself. A flower is not worth a second look unless it can be used; a man or a woman who cannot advance one's interests does not deserve further attention. Conscoiusness is stuctured entirely in terms of its own ends, and nothing is allowed to exist in it that does not conform to these ends
• both a self-conscious person and a self-centered one, doesn't have enough control of psychic energy to enter easily into a flow experience. Both lack the attentional fluidity needed to relate to activities for their own sake; too much psychic energy is wrapped up in the self, and free attention is rigidly guided by its needs
• attentional disordered and stimulus overinclusion precent flow because psychic energy is too fluid and errative. Excessive self-consciousness and self-centereness precent it for the opposite reason: attention is too rigid and tight
• natural environmentalobstacles do not prevent flow
• the social conditions that inhibit flow might be more difficult to overcome
• anomie and alienation are two terms describing states of social pathology that makes flow difficult toexperience
• anomi - lack of rules - condition in society in which the norms of behavior has become muddled. when it is no longer clear what is permitted and what is not, wht it is uncertain what public opinion values, hebavior becomes errative and meaningless
• alienation - a condition in which people are constrained by the social system to act in ways that go against their goals
• when a society suffers from anomie, flow is made difficult because it is not clear what is worth investing pyschic energy in; what is dufferes from alientation, the problem is that oe cannot invest psychic energy in what is clearly desireable
• fragmentation of attential processes [anomie, and attentional disorders]
• excessive rigidity [alienation and self-centeredness]
• at the individual leve, anomie corresponds to anxiety, while alienation corresponds to boredom

neurophysiology of flow

• This is turn suggests that people who can enjoy themselves in a variety of situations have the ability to screen out stimulation and to focus only on what they decide is relevant for the moment.
• The association between the ability to concentrate and flow is clear; it will take further research to ascertain which one causes the other.

The effects of the family on the autotelic personality

• teenagers who had certain types of relationship with their parents were significantly more happy, satisfied, and strong in most life situationsthan their peers who did not have such a relationship
• the family context promoting optimal experience could be described as having five characteristics
  • clarity - teenagers feel that they know what their parents expect frmo them - goals and feedback in the family interaction are unambiguous
  • centering - the children's perception that their parents are interested in what they are doing in the present in their concrete feelings and experiences, rather than being preoccupied with whether they will be getting into a good college or obtaining a well-paying job
  • choice - children feel that they have a variety of possibilities from which to choose, including that of breaking parental rules - as long as they are prepared to face the consequences
  • commitment - the trust that allows the shild to feel comfortable enough to set aside the shield of his defenses, and become unself consciously involved in whatever he is interested in
  • challenge - parent's dedication to provide increasingly complex opportunities for action to their children
• The presence of these fice conditions made possible what was called the "autotelic family context" because they provide an ideal training for enjoying life
• in less well-ordered families a great deal of energy is expended in constant negotiations and strife, and in the children's attempts to protext their fragile selves from being overwhelmed by other people's goals
• Differences were also present when the teenagers were alone studying, or in school: here optimal experience was more accessible to children from autotelic families
• only when teenagers were with their frends did the differences disappear: with friends both groups felt equally positive, regardless of whether the families were autotelic or not
• instead of seeking the complexity of enjoyment, an ill-treated shild is likeyl to grow up into an adult who will be satisfied to obtain as much pleasure as possible from life

The people of flow

• the traits that mark an autotelic personality are most clearly revealed by people who seem to enjoy situations that ordinary persons would find unbearable.
• They followed the blueprint of flow activities
  • first, they paid close attention to the most minute details of their environment, discovering in it hidden opportunities for action that matched what little they were capable of doing, given the circumstances
  • then they set goals appropriate to their precarious situation, and closely monitored progress through the feedback they received.
  • Whenever they reached their goal, they upped the ante, setting increasingly complex challenges for themsleves
• When adversity threatens to paralyze us, we need to reassert control by finding a new direction in which to invest psychic energy
• Then, even though that person is objectively a slave, subjectively he is free.
• Richard Loganconcludes that the most important trait of survivors is a "nonselfconscious individualism," or a strongly directed purpose that is not self-seeking.
• With enough psychic energy free to observe and analyze their surroundings objectively, they have a better chance of discovering in them new opportunities for action. If we were to consider one trait a key element of the autotelic personality, this might be it
• narcissistic individuals, who are mainly concerned with protecting theirself, fall apart when the external conditions turn threatening. The ensuing panis prevents them from doing what they must do; their attention turns inward ni an effort to retores order in consciousness, and not enough remains to negotiate outside reality.
• Bertrand Russell, one of the greatest philosophers of our country, described how he achieved personal happiness: "gradually I learned to be indifferent to myself and my deficiences; I came to center my attention increasingly upon external objects: the state of the world, various branches of knowledge, individuals for whom I felt affection." There could be no better short description of how to build for oneself an autotelic personality