The Flow book is definitely new approach to the problems of human emotions and their influence on behavior. The so-called "joy of the flow" represents the highest degree of consciousness. This is the gift that the universe rewards us for striving to solve more and more new tasks...

What main feature methods of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi? This is a constant work on yourself, your feelings, experiences. The quality of experiences can be constantly improved by investing a special currency. It's not money or gold, it's emotions and organized efforts to achieve harmony. The author constantly reminds us that happiness is not a coincidence of random circumstances. This is, above all, art, science and constant work. Any person can become happy, but the key to achieving happiness lies in the ability to control your feelings, desires, impressions, behavior.

In Csikszentmihalyi's book, he cites as an example all sorts of creative people. He reveals a pattern between the feeling of happiness, and the constant process of insight experienced by artists. This can be considered a flow state. But the stream cannot be considered the property of a separate caste of people. The author makes it clear, building a whole theory, that there is a flow in the idea of ​​everything. And when a person completely “merges” with his business (work, hobby, recreation, sports), he begins to come to a state of flow. Stops hearing the world, does not feel tired, receives an additional charge of pure energy.

The book will be extremely interesting to those who seek to find harmony with themselves. Those who want to live this life happily and healthy. Those who are interested in psychology, expansion of consciousness, self-control and other psychological practices. The book can be of interest to absolutely any category of readers.

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 Csikszentmihalyi calls the state when a person is completely absorbed in an interesting business, in which he realizes his potential to the maximum, 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: Psychology 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 by-effect man'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, 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 in our life. This is what we call optimal experience.

The best moments usually happen when the body and mind are strained 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 was 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 own life.

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.

Protective mechanisms developed in the past - the order that religion, patriotism, folk traditions and social norms, - turn out to be ineffective for an increasing number of people who feel thrown into a maelstrom of chaos. Absence 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 of scientific progress, despite the fact that the essence of these truths has remained 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 function, 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. For achievement 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 necessary nutrients. 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 the action of an invisible genetic code with its own purpose. Because attraction is purely based on physical reactions reflex, one must think 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. The simple truth 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 "others" were fighting for control of the mind: the id (biological drives) and the superego (social control). They are opposed by the Ego, which embodies genuine needs personality associated with its immediate environment.

Chapter 2. ANATOMY OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Like all human behavior, the functioning of consciousness is the result 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 wonderful poems and scientific theories.

I believe that of all existing models, it 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, "a phenomenological model of consciousness based on information theory". Phenomenological this model is called because it deals directly with the phenomena of consciousness - events that we are aware of and interpret, and not with 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 the 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 linear system, but a system with cyclic causal relationships. 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. Once this is dealt with, we can move on to difficult question about 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 flow state personal organization becomes more difficult 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 external conditions so that they better suit our purposes. 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 psychological growth and complexity of 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 the 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 means "in itself", and telos means "target". 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 true price freedom” is valid 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 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 fastest way to change the state of consciousness. Mimicry exercises allow us to change our individuality through fantasy, imitation and disguise.

We found one general characteristics, which unites numerous varieties of flow sensations. 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 sports wear will get better. 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 a new, more difficult goal, appropriate level his skills - for example, to defeat 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. AT recent decades representatives social sciences extremely reluctant to express value judgments towards 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 advanced cultures remained in the distant past. We certainly condemn a young Arab suicide bomber driving a truck full of explosives into a foreign embassy, ​​but we can no longer feel morally superior to his belief that heaven awaits all self-sacrificing warriors. 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 the flow state is main goal of a person, in this case every social system can be assessed. 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; excessively 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 her 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 "no rules" 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 that prevent the achievement of 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 self-centeredness). 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 interest of parents in what their child thinks and feels in this moment rather than worrying about which college he gets into or whether he can get a well-paying job. The third feature is the opportunity given to children to choose: they feel that they can act at their own discretion, including violating parent rules if they are willing 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. source inner strength people in extremely difficult circumstances may be "unegocentric individualism", i.e. Availability important goal 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 to interact with external reality there is no psychic energy left.

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 areas knowledge, people to whom I felt affection ”(for more details, see). 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 shell at a minimum, depriving yourself of numerous opportunities to experience the state of flow. 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. Streaming sensations received when using physical skills, occur not only among 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 - not the only ways get joy from the body; great amount a 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 our nervous system can recognize can lead to rich and varied flow experiences.

Flow in music. All cultures known to us actively used the ordering of sounds in sequences pleasing to the ear in order to improve the quality of life. 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 save us from boredom and anxiety, but also, when serious attitude to it, can generate flow experiences. Creating harmony with the help of sounds not only gives us joy, but also, as an achievement of mastery in any difficult case strengthens the personality.

The joy of taste sensations. Just like music, food can affect our feelings, and the knowledge of this is the basis of the high culinary arts of different countries. Food, like sex, is one of the fundamental pleasures embedded in our nervous system. In every culture, the simple process of consuming calories has evolved over time into an art that brings not only the natural pleasure of satisfying the 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 interesting adventure, a field for new experiments and discoveries, loves food for the sake of sensations, and not for the sake of once again impressing others, he will receive 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 the corresponding flow activity, so each mental operation can bring a special, characteristic joy for it. Among the many available intellectual pursuits reading seems to be the most frequently mentioned streaming activity around the world these days.

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; must exist certain rules, goal 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 streamline his 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, as 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. Much The best way struggle with chaos in the mind is to independently control their 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. Despite the fact that in our culture the knowledge of genealogy has lost practical significance, 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 make it possible 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 has become acquainted with the basics of mathematical analysis has taken a step towards independence from external stimuli. 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 at different levels of complexity. A prime example crossword puzzles can serve as such an opportunity. 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 the optimal experience of a person - complete merging with one’s work, absorption by it, when you don’t feel time, yourself, when instead of fatigue there is a constant surge of energy ...

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi discovered it while researching the lives of creative people, but the "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 lives.

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 somehow perceived ordinary events, 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 beat 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 faint 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 basketball championship finals, 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, regardless of the difference in cultural levels, degree of economic well-being, social class, 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 human development, each culture has developed certain defense mechanisms that make life easier for a person. 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 in every this 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 goals follows from a conscious assessment of one's experiences and reflects true needs. Autotelic Personality Can Transform Chaos external environment into the 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 unexpected results of his research was that even years after the misfortune that happened to them, these people ambiguously assessed the tragic event 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).

Every week H&F reads one business book and selects interesting passages from it. This time we read a book famous psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, dedicated to the idea of ​​flow - the optimal working state and how to achieve it.

Mihaly CHIKSENTMIHAYI

What is a flow

Our perception of life is the result of action various forces, giving shape to our experiences, influencing whether we are good or bad. Most of these forces are beyond our control. But we all had to experience moments when we felt not the blows of nameless forces, but control over our actions, dominance over our own destiny. Contrary to popular belief, the best moments of our lives do not come to us in a state of relaxation or passive contemplation, but when the body and mind are strained to the limit in an effort to achieve something difficult and valuable.

The immediate sensations experienced in these moments do not have to be pleasant. Gaining control over your own life is not an easy task, sometimes accompanied by pain. Ultimately, however, such experiences are closest to what we usually call happiness. This theory is based on the concept flow - a state of complete absorption in the activity, when everything else recedes into the background, and the pleasure of the process is so great that people will be willing to pay just to do it.

The main enemies of the stream

In reality, achieving such an ordered state of mind is more difficult than it might seem. Contrary to the usual stereotypes, the normal state of consciousness is chaos. Without proper training and in the absence of the attention of an external object, people cannot maintain concentration for more than a few minutes at a time. Alone, without the need to concentrate, we find that consciousness begins to sink into chaos. Left to itself, it tends to switch attention randomly, lingering on unpleasant and disturbing thoughts.

If a person does not know how to arbitrarily organize his consciousness, attention will inevitably stop at some problem that torments him, at real or imagined pain. There is nothing joyful or useful about entropy, but it is natural state consciousness.

When it comes to work
people are guided by the cultural stereotype that work should be unpleasant

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 of this task. The process of achieving the goal streamlines consciousness, since concentration on fulfillment current task cuts off everything that is not relevant.

The flow state is the opposite of psychic entropy. In fact, you have to fight not with yourself, but with entropy, which brings chaos into consciousness. In essence, this is a battle for yourself, a struggle to establish control over attention.

The paradox of work

Research shows that people feel happier, stronger, and more creative while at work than during their free time, when they are often bored and don't know what to do. But at the same time, people tend to work less and rest more. How can this contradiction be explained?

When it comes to work, people stop trusting their own feelings. They do not pay attention to their actual experiences, but instead focus on the ingrained cultural stereotype that work should be unpleasant. They think of it as a coercion, a restriction of their freedom, from which they must strive to get rid of with all their might.

But if a person pays attention to any task against his will, he feels that his psychic energy is wasted. The time spent on this, he perceives as deleted from life. Many people treat their work as a forced occupation, and this prevents them from enjoying life, even if the work at the moment gives them pleasure.

Conditions for creating a stream

As a result of our research, eight main components of the experience of the state of flow have been identified. First, the task that a person sets himself must be feasible for him. Whatever the subject does, his abilities must correspond to the complexity of the task before him. Joy arises on the border between boredom and fear of failure. 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.

Joy comes from work
on the border between boredom and fear can not cope

Sixth, flow activities 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. All flow sensations, 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.

Difficulty increase tasks
as the activity gets boring

Having a goal streamlines a person's efforts, but it doesn't necessarily make life easier. Working on the implementation of the goals, the individual may encounter a variety of troubles. But having abandoned the goal, he will have to pay for a more pleasant and comfortable life with an empty existence, devoid of any meaning.

Flow. The Psychology of Optimal Experience” is a book about the psychology of personality by author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. In his work, he raises an important topic of human happiness.

All people strive to be happy, to find this feeling in work, other people, relationships. But few people are ready to think and realize that happiness must be found within oneself. Someone does their job with enthusiasm, better and faster. And someone does it through force, slowly and with worse results. Of course, it is likely that a person is not minding his own business. But there are people who experience this feeling all the time. It turns out that a person does not know how to hear himself, cannot realize his desires, do what brings him happiness. How to find a job that you want to rush to, so as not to notice how time flies and not get tired after a day? Is it always work?

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi teaches the reader to approach everything with inspiration, emotional upsurge, finding it all within himself. After all, even the most routine work can be done with pleasure, you can add to it what inspires you in another matter. It is important to perceive every event, every moment, feeling the joy of the very fact of life.

The author describes the state of inspiration, involvement and even excitement, which he calls the flow. He teaches how to understand yourself, realize what you are doing wrong and change everything in better side. The reader will be able to learn how to enter this stream, catch the right wave. And being in the flow, you can get more efficiency not only in work, but also in life, with less moral and physical effort. Every day, any business will bring pleasure and satisfaction. The book will be useful to those who love self-development, who want to understand themselves and find happiness and inspiration within themselves.

The work belongs to the genre Psychology. On our site you can download the book "Flow. The Psychology of Optimal Experience" in fb2, rtf, epub, pdf, txt format or read online. The rating of the book is 4.05 out of 5. Here, before reading, you can also refer to the reviews of readers who are already familiar with the book and find out their opinion. In the online store of our partner you can buy and read the book in paper form.