Friday, December 23, 2011

Flow

[Listening to as I write this: Kurr, Amiina]

I mentioned before that I've started reading Flow, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (who, incidentally, is Hungarian...I thought there was a good chance of that, given his dauntingly difficult to pronounce surname). I'm only 77 pages in as I write this, but feeling pretty moved already. I'm not without complaints (I love pop-sci, but some his examples are growing repetitive, and the therm "psychic energy" makes me cringe...I'll likely have more to say about that later), but this book will really get you to reconsider, or at least re-articulate (I imagine I'd fall more in the latter category) what it is to truly enjoy your life. The book ostensibly offers lesson about achieving happiness, but I find myself reminded of a conversation with a friend who told me that being "happy" is not actually all that important. Life is about growing as an individual an understanding one's self. As I read this I realize that Csikszentmihalyi and my friend are actually saying much the same thing (I just think Csikszentmihalyi would call that such self-actualization IS happiness).

But anyway, the specific thing I wanted to point out here was this passage:

When a person invests all her psychic energy into an interaction - whether it is with another person, a boat, a mountain, or a piece of music - she in effect becomes part of a system of action greater than what the individual self had been before. This system takes its form from the rules of the activity; its energy comes from the person's attention. But it is a real system - subjectively as real as being part of a family, a corporation, or a tem - and the self that is part of it expands its boundaties and becomes more complex that what it had been.


Whoa. This sounds a whole like an extended mind proponent talking, and I'm what Csikszentmihalyi thinks/knows about that business. Interesting to think about, and I'm going to keep it in mind as I keep reading. Maybe it will be worth getting in touch with him about it at some point. Hmm.

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