Flow

Lessons Learned:

• can enjoy any activity by making it challenging...make it into a game that requires improvement and keep upping the difficulty
• sadness and depression occurs when mind has nothing to focus on...naturally, chaos in the mind occurs when the activity lacks the characteristics of flow (ie, watching tv....lying on the beach...activities that may be entertaining but do not cause complexity)
• boredom occurs when too easy...make it more complex and difficult to make it more fun
• enjoyment happens when exceed our limits
• to enhance every moment of life, focus all energy on task at hand and don't divert any attention to anything else, including the self.
• to fully enjoy something, u must pay attention to it...can't just do something and expect joy to occur spontaneously
• to achieve flow, need to place less attention on the reward or outcome and more attention on the experience itself...the goal is the experience
• the flipside of flow is obsession which leads to addiction which is best avoided
• when feeling bad (because nothing to do or think about), its natural to just watch tv...but instead, think of something more productive to the self to do...(documentary, a book, sports)
• to make things more enjoyable, shape the activity into a game
• goal is to be able to not get bored or depressed in an environment that lacks external stimulation
• instead of looking at a new challenge as something that could have been avoided, look at it as an opportunity for learning and for improving skills
• ultimate goals change. so does the ultimate strategy...way to happiness and success is not to close out everything in order to go strictly with the predetermined path, but instead of listen to clues and move accordingly depending on how it makes us feel...and only in doing the process will u be able to come to the conclusion of what the ultimate goal is.
• success in one area does not guarantee success in life...needs to be well-rounded
• shortcut to harmony is to learn from past human achievements...nearly impossible without guidance of past wisdom
  

chapter 2: the anatomy of consciousness

• each of us has the freedom to control our subjective reality
• the nervous system has definite limits on how much info it can process at one given time
• the info we allow into consciousness is extremely important...it determines the content and quality of life
• we create ourselves by how we invest our attention energy
• memories, thoughts, and feelings are all shaped by how we use it
• it is an energy under out control, to do with as we please
• attention is the most important tool in the task of improving the quality of experience
• attention shapes the self, and is in turn shaped by it...consciousness is not a linear system, but actually more circular
• a new piece of information will either create disorder in consciousness, by getting us all worked up to face the threat, or it will reinforce our goals, thereby freeing up psychic energy
• one of the main forces that affects consciousness adversely is psychic disorder - that is, information that conflicts with existing intentions, or distracts us from carrying them out. All of these varieties of disorder force attention to be diverted to undesirable objects, leaving us no longer free to use it according to our preferences...
• when we choose a goal and invest ourselves in it to the limits of our concentrating, whatever we do will be enjoyable

8 components of enjoyment activities (when have all 8, ppl feel deep enjoyment)

1. a task we have a chance to complete
2. must be able to concentrate on it
3. clear goals
4. immediate feedback
5. acting in a deep but effortless involvement that removes awareness from worries or frustrations
6. allows people to exercise a sense of control over the actions
7. sense of self emerges stronger after the flow experience is over
8. sense that the duration of time has altered (time moved fast / slow)
   

Chapter 3: enjoyment and the quality of life

• ppl become so involved in what they are doing that they activity becomes spontaneous, almost automatic, they stop being aware of themselves as separate from the actions they are performing
• enjoyable activities require a complete focusing of attention on the task at hand - thus leaving no room in the mind for irrelevant information
• it is not possible to experience a feeling of control unles one is willing
• playing the stock market in order to make money is not an autotelic experience; but playing it in order to prove one's skill at foretelling future trends is - even though the outcome in terms of dollars and cents is exactly the same

Chapter 4: the conditions of flow

• competition improves experience only as long as attention is focused primarily on the activity itself (focus on beating the opponent and u lose flow)
• when our skill is higher than the activity requires (boredom), we need to make the activity more complex (difficult) to get back into flow
• if our skills are too low for the activity (frustation), we need to lower the difficulty of the activity to match the level of our skills to get back into flow
• flow occurs when our skill level is matched with the difficulty of the challenge (x=y, slope of 1 is best - talking about graph in book)
• children who grow up in family situations that facilitate clarity of goals, feedback, feeling of control, concentration on the task at hand, intrinsic motivation (happiness from the doing, not external rewards), and challenge will generally have a better chance to order their lives so as to make flow possible

how to find flow in bleak circumstances:

1. paid close attention to the most minute details of their environment to discover hidden opportunities for action that match their capabilities, given the circumstances
2. set goals appropriate to their situation
3. closely monitored progress through the feedback they received
4. whenever the goal was reached, they upped the ante, setting increasingly complex challenges for themselves

Chapter 5: the body in flow

• how to keep love fresh? as with all other activities, it needs to become more complex...raise the stakes in terms of the getting to know the partner better...think up interesting activities to do together (diff types of sex, travel, raising kids, volunteer work)...when things aren't exciting, change things up (move to new city, hang out with new friends, etc)
• listening to music (which is organized auditory info), wards off boredom and anxiety by creating organizing the mind with patterns or familiar songs and voices.
• Plato believed that children should be taught music before anything else; in learning to pay attention to graceful rhythms and harmonies their whole consciousness would become ordered
• even when children are taught music, the usual problem often arises: too much emphasis is placed on how they perform, and too little on what they experience
• "what love is to the heart, appetite is to the stomach. The stomach is the conductor that leads and livens up the orchestra of our emotions." (rossini)
• as long as one strives to become a gourmet or a connoisseur of wines because it is the "in" thing to do, striving to master an externally imposed challenge, then taste may turn sour. But a cultivated palate provides many opportunities for flow if one approaches eating - and cooking - in a spirit of adventure and curiosity, exploring the potentials of food for the sake of the experience rather than as a showcase for one's expertise
• if a person learns to control his instinctual desires, not because he has to, but because we wants to, he can enjoy himself without becoming addicted
• of course it is difficult for any one person to reach high levels of complexity in more than one physical domain. But is it certainly possible to become a dilettante in all these areas, in other words, to develop sufficient skills so as to find delight in what the body can do.
  

how to transform any physical act to produce flow:

1. set an overall goal and as many subgoals as realistically feasible
   
2. find ways to measure progress in terms of the goals chosen
3. keep concentrating on what one is doing and keep making finer and finer distinctions in the challenges involved
4. develop the skills to interact with the opportunities available
5. keep raising stakes if the activity becomes too boring

Chapter 6: the flow of thought

• all physical activities involve a mental control if they are to be enjoyable. to improve performance beyond a certain point, one must learn to discipline their minds
• when we are left alone, with no demands on attention, the basic disorder of the mind reveals itself. with nothing to do, it begins to follow random patterns, usually stopping to consider something painful or disturbing. Unless a person knows how to give order to his or her thoughts, attention will be attracted to whatever is most problematic at the moment: it will focus on some real or imaginary pain, on recent grudges or long-term frustrations.
• to avoid this feeling, people are naturally eager to fill their minds with whatever info is readily available...usually TV...
  
• the better route for avoiding chaos in consciousness is through habits that give control over mental processes to the individual, rather than to some external source of stimulation, such as TV.
• writing gives the mind a disciplined means of expression. it allows one to record events and experiences so that they can be easily recalled, and relived in the future. it is a way to analyze and understand experiences, a self-communication that brings order to them

mental framework that makes science enjoyable to everyone:

1. curiosity
   
2. careful observation
3. a disciplined way of recording events
4. finding ways to tease out the underlying regularities in what one learns
5. humility to be willing to learn from results of past investigators
6. enough skepticism and openness of mind to reject beliefs that are not supported by facts
   

chapter 7: work as flow

• the more a job inherently resembles a game - with variety, apppropriate and flexible challenges, clear goals, and immediate feedback - the more enjoyable it will be regardless of the worker's level of development
• whenever ppl were in flow, either at work or in leisure, they reported it as a much more positive experience than the times they were not in flow. when challenges and skills were both high they felt happier, more cheerful, stronger, more active; they concentrated more; they felt more creative and satisfied
• motivation was low at work even when it provided flow, and it was high in leisure even when the quality of experience was low
• the paradoxical situation: on the job people feel skillful and challenged, and therefore feel more happy, strong, creative, and satisfied. In their free time ppl feel that there is generally not much to do and their skills are not being used, and therefore they tend to feel more sad, weak, dull, and dissatisfied. Yet they would like to work less and spend more time in leisure
• why hate work? people think of the stereotype of work: that it is imposed, a constraint, an infringement of their freedom, and therefore something to be avoided as much as possible
• jobs are actually easier to enjoy than free time, becasue liek flow activitiesthey have built-in goals, feedback, rules, and challenges, all of which encourage one to become involved in one's work, to concentrate and lose onself in it. Free time, on the other hand, is unstructured, and requires much greater effort to be shaped into something that can be enjoyed.
  
• Hobbies that demand skill, habits that set goals and limits, personal interests, and especially inner discipline help to make lesiure what it is supposed to be - a change for re-creation. But on the whole, ppl miss the opportunity to enjoy leisure even more thoroughly than they do with working time
• "the future will belong not only to the educated man, but to the man, who is educated to use his leisure wisely"
  

3 main reasons americans are dissatisfied with their jobs:

1. lack of variety and challenge (especially for lower-level occupations in which routine is a major role)
   
2. conflicts with other people on the job, esp bosses
3. burnout: too much pressure, too much stress, too little time to think for oneself, too little time to spend with family (more a problem for the higher echelons: executives and managers)
   

how to transform boring, repetitive, and meaningless work into complex activities:

1. recognizing opportunities for action where others did not
2. developing skills
3. focusing on the activity at hand
4. allowing themselves to be lost in the interaction of that their selves could emerge stronger afterwards

Chapter 8: enjoying solitude and other people

• quality of life depends on 2 factors: how we experience work, and our relations with other people
• for ppl who live by themselves and do not attend church, sunday mornings are the lowest part of the week, b/c with no demands on attention, they are unable to decide what to do
• why is solitude such a negative experience? because keeping order in the mind from within is very difficult. we need external goals, external stimulation, external feedback to keep attention directed. And when external input is lacking, attention begins to wander, and thoughts become chaotic, resulting in the state of "psychic entropy"
• with nothing to do, the mind is unable to prevent negative thoughts from elbowing their way to center stage
• drugs and tv can keep unpleasant concerns out of the mind but are activities that require low levels of complexity
• even pain is better than the chaos that seeps into an unfocused mind, hurting oneself, whether physically or emotionally, ensures that attention can be focused on something that is at least controllable - since we are the one causing it.
• a person who rarely gets bored, who does not constantly need a favorable external environment to enjoy the moment, has passed the test for having achieved a creative life
• way to grow while enjoying life is to create a higher form of order out of the entropy that is an inevitable condition of living. this means taking each new challenge not as something to be repressed or avoided, but as an opportunity for learning and for improving skills
• to enjoy being alone, a person must build his own mental routines..
• more important than structuring space (create order for familiarity, comfort, and interest) perhaps, is structuring time (a schedule to organize free time)
• if being alone is seen as a chance to accomplish goals that cannot be reached in the company of others, then instead of feeling lonely, a person will enjoy solitude and might be able to learn new skills in the process. on the other hand, if solitude is seen as a condition to be avoided at all costs instead of as a challenge, the person will panic and resort to distractions that cannot lead to higher levels of complexity
• cicero once wrote that to be completely free one must become a slave to a set of laws. in order words, accepting limitations is liberating. A person no longer needs to worry whether she has made the right choice, or whether the grass might be greener somewhere else. as a result, a great deal of energy gets freed up for living, instead of being spent on wondering about how to live.
• if a child feels that his parents are unconditionally committed to his welfare, he can then relax and explore the world without fear; otherwise he has to allocate psychic energy to his own protection, thereby reducing the amount he can freely dispose of.
• it is in the company of friends that we can most clearly experience the freedom of self and learn who we really are. the ideal of a modern marriage is to have one's spouse as a friend

how to create a flow experience:

1. set a goal
2. concentrate one's psychic energy
3. pay attention to the feedback
4. make certain that the challenge is appropriate to one's skill

Chapter 9: creating chaos

• of all the virtues we can learn no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge
• we will never become aware of other possibilities unless, like the painter who watches with care what is happening on the canvas, we pay attention to what is happening around us, and evaluate events on the basis of their direct impact on how we feel, rather than evalutating them exclusively in terms of preconceived notions. if we do so, we may discover that, contrary to what we were to led to believe, it is more satisfying to do X, or Y, or Z than A and B.

how to overcome adverse circumstances and turn it into positive influences:

1. realize and accept limitations, and attempt to overcome them
2. decide to always try changing those situations u do not like
3. be careful not to repeat any of the mistakes you made
4. try to be tolerant with yourself so you can be tolerant of others also

how to transform a hopeless situation into a new flow activity:

1. unselfish self assurance - the implicit belief that their destiny was in their hands. they did not doubt their own resources would be sufficient to allow them to determine their fate. this occurs when a person no longer sees himself in opposition to the environment, as an individual who insists that his goals, his intentions take precedence over everything else. instead, he feels he is a part of a bigger system in which he must work with to succeed. (such as the stock market...work with it, not against it in trying to control it)...in order to have this humility, one must trust oneself, one's environment, and one's place in it.
   
2. focusing attention on the world - if too focused inward (the self and its concerns and desires), its very hard to notice the environment. successful ppl spend very little thinking about themselves. they don't waste energy on self. instead, their attention is alert, constantly processing info from their surroundings. The focus is set by the person's goals but still open enough to adapt to external events even if they are not directly relevant to what he wants to accomplish (notices important signals from environment that a 100% focused and closed person would not see - cues of market indicators, etc). an open stance makes it possible for a person to be objective, to be aware of alternative possibilities, to feel a part of the surrounding world...able to adjust with the ever-changing environment...
3. the discovery of new solutions - the ability to think outside of the box, away from the norm...most if us become so rigidly fixed in the ruts carved out by genetic programming and social conditioning that we ignore the options of choosing any other course of action. we need to be open to options and not so strict with our plans. it is only in doing with confidence, observing the environment with an open mind, and the flexibility to change courses that we will be lead to ultimate happiness...because many times, what we think we want is not exactly what we want...only in reading the clues of the environment and feedback will you be able to come to this conclusion...step 100 might not be related to ideas of step 1 but cannot get to step 100 without step 1. How does one go about discovering alternate strategies? if one operates with unselfconscious assurance, and remains open to the environment and involved in it, a solution is likely to emerge

how to transform entropic experiences into flow:

1. setting goals - to be able to experience flow, one must have clear goals to strive for. an autotelic self knows that she has chosen whatever goal she is pursuing. what she does is not random, nor is it a result of outside forces. firstly, this results in her having a feeling of ownership of her decisions which makes her more strongly dedicated to her goals. on the other hand, knowing them to be her own, she can more easily modify her goals whenever the reasons for preserving them no longer make sense. in that she is more consistent and more flexible than a non-autotelic person)
2. becoming immersed in the activity - to grow deeply involved with whatever he is doing...in doing so, he must have realistic expectations, not too difficult nor too easy. a need for the ability to concentrate
3. paying attention to what is happening - concentration leads to involvement, which can only be maintained by constant inputs of attention....cannot have attention lapses....must keep investing psychic energy...cannot get lazy...need to take attention away from self-conscious. sometimes its the depth of involvement that pushes self-consciousness out of awareness, sometimes its the lack of self-consciousness that makes deep involvement.
4. learning to enjoy immediate experience - being in control of the mind means that literally anything that happens can be a source of joy

Chapter 10: The making of meaning

• having achieved flow in one activity does not necessarily guarantee that it will be carried over to the rest of life (success in one area does not guarantee success in life...needs to be well-rounded)
• goal is to have an ultimate all-encompassing goal in which all others goals logically follow..this can give meaning to one's entire life
• it is true that life has no universal meaning for everyone, but it does not mean that life cannot be given meaning.
• as long as it provides clear objectives, clear rules for action, and a way to concentrate and become involved, any goal can serve to give meaning to a person's life
• ppl who find their lives meaningful usually have a goal that is challenging enough to take up all their energies, a goal that can give significance to their lives. its called achieving purpose.
  
• the goal in itself is not important; what matters is that it focuses a person's attention and involves it in an achievable, enjoyable activity
• what counts is not so much whether a person actually achieves what she has set out to do; rather , it matters whether effort has been expended to reach the goal, instead of being diffused or wasted.
• few things are sadder than encountering a person who knows exactly what he should do, yet cannot muster enough energy to do it.
• when an important goal is pursued with resolution, and all one's varied activities fit together into a unified flow experience, the result is that harmony is brought to consciousness
• purpose, resolution, and harmony unify life and give it meaning by transforming it into a seamless flow experience. whoever achieves this state will never really lack anything else. will never fear unexpected events, even death. every living moment will make sense and most of it will be enjoyable
• complexity requires that we invest energy in developing whatever skills we were born with, in becoming autonomous, self-reliant, conscious of our uniqueness and of its limitations. at the same time we must invest energy in recognizing, understanding, and finding ways to adapt to the forces beyond the boundaries of our own individuality
• wealth of options results to the inevitable consequences of equally attractive choices which leads to uncertainty of purpose. therefore freedom does not necessarily help develop meaning in life. if the rules of the game become too flexible, concentration flags, and it is more difficult to attain flow experience
• there is no one one out there to tell us "here is a goal worth spending your life on". each person must discover ultimate purpose on his or her own. through trial and error, through intense cultivation, we can straighten out the tangled skein of conflicting goals, and choose the one that will give purpose to action.
• activity and reflection should ideally complement and support each other. action by itself is blind, reflection impotent. before investing great amounts of energy in a goal, it pays to raise the fundamental questions: is this something i really want to do? is it something i enjoy doing? am i likely to enjoy it in the foreseeable future? is the price that i - and other - will have to pay worth it? will i be able to live with myself if i accomplish it?
• if goals are well chosen, and if we have the courage to abide by them despite opposition, we shall be so focused on the actins and events around us that we won't have the time to be unhappy.
  
• the psychic entropy peculiar to the human condition involves seeing more to do than one can actually accomplish and feeling able to accomplish more than what conditions allow. but this becomes possible only if one keeps in mind more than one goal at a time, being aware at the same time of conflicting desires. it can happen only when the mind knows not only what is but also what could be. the more complex any system, the more room it leaves open for alternatives, and the more things can do wrong with it. when there are too many demands, options, challenges, we become anxious; when too few, we get bored
• the strategy consists in extracting from the order achieved by past generations patterns that will help avoid disorder in one's own mind. there is much knowledge accumulated in culture, ready for this use for anyone to see as examples of how harmony can be imposed on chaos (art, music, dance, philosophy). yet so many ppl ignore them, expecting to create meaning in their lives by their own devices
• to discard the hard-won info on how to live accumulated by our ancestors, or to expect to discover a viable set of goals all by oneself, is misguided hubris. the chances of success are nearly impossible if working alone without guidance of past wisdom...instead we learn how to make things by receiving ordered info from teachers, form books, from models, so as to benefit from the knowledge of the past and eventually surpass it
• dante recognized that every system of spiritual order, when it becomes incorporated into a worldly structure like an organized church, beings to suffer the effects of entropy. so to extract meaning from a system of beliefs a person must first compare the info contained in it with his or her concrete experience, retain what makes sense, and then reject the rest.
• the most promising faith for the future might be based on the realization that the entire universe is a system related by common laws and that it makes no sense to impose our dreams and desires on nature without taking them into account. recognizing the limitations of the human will and accepting cooperative rather than a ruling role in the universe
  

steps of goals for humans

1. need to preserve the self - survival, comfort, and pleasure...
2. when safety of physical self is no longer in doubt, he strives to embrace the values of the community...leads to greater complexity but implies conformity to conventional norms and standards
   
3. reflective individualism - the desire for growth, improvement, the actualization for potential
4. integration with other people and with the universal values - merging interests with those of a larger whole.