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T he Man Who Found the Flow

By Andrew Cooper "What is happiness?" asked psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He found it in a state of mind beyond results and rewards and called it "the flow." A profile of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi by Andrew Cooper. "To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life." Walter Pater In 1963, a young doctoral student in psychology at the University of Chicago noticed a most intriguing phenomenon. In the course of his research on the creative process, he had spent hundreds of hours observing artists at w ork and interview ing them about the nature of their experience. W hat he w as most struck by w as their intense and total involvement as they struggled to bring their vision to life on canvas. Immersed in their w ork and oblivious to outside obligations, the passage of time, and even their ow n hunger and fatigue, the artists seemed to be seized in a kind of trance. Curiously, once a painting w as finished, this highly focused state quickly dissipated and the artists simply set aside the very thing they had labored so hard to create. The researcher w as an immigrant of Hungarian descent named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced "CHICK-sent-me-high-ee"). After w itnessing this process again and again, he realized that it w as the activity itself-the w ork of painting-that so enthralled his subjects and not, as he had expected, the anticipation of its outcome. W hether or not a finished painting produced significant extrinsic rew ards-money, praise, fame, even a sense of achievement-the act of creating w as intrinsically rew arding. It w as w orth doing-indeed, it w as done-simply for the sake of doing it. This ran, and still runs, counter to the prevailing w isdom of the field. Most psychological theories of motivation assert that w e act either to assuage an unpleasant condition-hunger, say, or anxiety-or to achieve some desired end. Even activities that are enjoyable in themselves are assumed to serve some socially adaptive or biologically practical function: children play to discharge aggressive feelings; sex is nature's w ay of getting us to pass on our genes. Such view s contain much truth, of course, but they are incomplete. The observation that some things are autotelic-w orth doing for their ow n sake-is hardly earth-shattering. But the simplicity of this observation can obscure the richness of its implications for the understanding of w ho w e humans are and how w e may evolve. For Csikszentmihalyi, it pointed to the deep and elusive question of the nature of happiness. W hat, he w ondered, do people feel w hen they are most happy? W hat is their state of mind? W hy do certain activities bring enjoyment and others do not? W hat can w e do to enhance our capacities to find enjoyment throughout the events of daily life? For almost thirty years, right up to the present day, he has devoted himself to the patient, rigorous and thorough study of such questions. In the course of his investigations, he has identified a dimension of human experience that is common to people the w orld over, regardless of culture, gender, race, age or nationality. Elderly Korean w omen, Japanese teenage motorcycle gang members, Navajo shepherds, assembly line w orkers in Chicago, artists, athletes, surgeons-all describe the experience in essentially the same w ords. Its characteristics include joy, deep concentration, emotional buoyancy, a heightened sense of mastery, a lack of self-consciousness, and self-transcendence. Employing an image used frequently by his subjects, Csikszentmihalyi gave to this optimal human experience the name "flow ." According to Csikszentmihalyi, moments of flow occur w hen our physical or mental capacities are stretched to their limits in pursuit of a w orthw hile goal. In fact, just about any activity can be made autotelic. As Csikszentmihalyi told me, "Talking to a friend, reading to a child, playing w ith a pet, or mow ing the law n can each produce flow , provided you find the challenge in w hat you are doing and then focus on doing it as best you can." Flow , then, is not something that happens to us; it is something w e make happen. It is not dependent on external events: it is the result of our ability to focus, and thus give order, to consciousness. Based on their research into flow , Csikszentmihalyi and his associates at the psychology department of the University of Chicago have over the years produced dozens of articles for scholarly journals. In the late 1980's, he decided to gather together tw o decades w orth of findings on the subject and present it in a book accessible to the lay reader. Flow : The Psychology of Optimal Experience w as released in 1990 and w as an instant success, a critically acclaimed national bestseller w hose popularity caught its author entirely by surprise. Csikszentmihalyi has become that rarity in the human sciences: a distinguished academic w hose w ork has significant impact on the cultural mainstream. New sw eek

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reported that Flow w as a favorite book of President Clinton (w ho, it seems, may be unclear on the distinction made in the book betw een pleasure and happiness). A recent article in the London Times discussed the favor Flow has found among British Prime Minister Tony Blair and members of his cabinet. W inning coach Jimmy Johnson credited Flow w ith helping him and his Dallas Cow boys prepare for the 1993 Superbow l. In Flow , Csikszentmihalyi describes eight "elements of enjoyment"-the factors that characterize or contribute to the flow experience. First, flow is likely to occur w hen one confronts a challenging task that requires skill. Here, there must be a balance betw een the demands of the activity and one's ability to meet those demands. If the activity is too easy, boredom w ill result; if it is too hard, it w ill cause anxiety. The second element is the merging of action and aw areness, in w hich one is so absorbed in the task at hand that the activity becomes spontaneous and one ceases to be aw are of oneself as standing separate from it. Third and fourth, optimal experience is more likely to occur w hen one's task has clear goals and provides immediate feedback. Fifth is a high degree of concentration, w hich limits the dissipation of energy caused by extraneous concerns. The sixth element is called the paradox of control: one feels a sense of control w ithout actively trying to be in control. More precisely, it might be said that one ceases to w orry about losing control. Seventh, preoccupation w ith the self disappears. The final element is an altered sense of time. Hours may seem like minutes, or conversely, one may experience a sense of w hat sports psychologists call "elongated time," in w hich things seem to move in slow motion. Not all these elements need be present for flow to occur, but in the course of thousands of interview s, Csikszentmihalyi and his associates found that virtually every account included at least one of them, and often most. Of the eight elements, one in particular emerged as the most telling aspect of optimal experience: the merging of action and aw areness. In Seven Pillars of W isdom, T.E. Law rence sounded a similar theme, w hen he w rote that "happiness is absorption." As the thirteen-century Zen master Dogen pointed out, in those moments w hen the w orld is experienced w ith the w hole of one's body and mind, the senses are joined, the self is opened, and life discloses an intrinsic richness and joy in being. For Csikszentmihalyi, this complex harmony of a unified consciousness is the mode of being tow ard w hich our ow n deepest inclination alw ays points us. The New York Times called him "a man obsessed by happiness," but for Csikszentmihalyi happiness is a far more subtle and profound state than w hat most people mean w hen they use the w ord. In describing the happiness associated w ith flow , Csikszentmihalyi cites Aristotle's term eudaimonia, a state of being "w ellfavored" w ithin oneself and in one's relation to the divine. Eudaimonia connects happiness w ith such characteristics as virtue, prosperity and blessedness. Flow and eudaimonia are not identical notions, but the link betw een the tw o is made clear in Flow 's opening sentence: "Tw enty-three hundred years ago Aristotle concluded that, more than anything else, men and w omen seek happiness. W hile happiness itself is sought for its ow n sake, every other goal-health, beauty, money, or pow er-is valued only because w e expect that it w ill make us happy." For Csikszentmihalyi, as for Aristotle, it is our human folly to mistake the means to happiness for the thing itself. As he is the first to point out, the "discovery" of flow and its w orkings is not a discovery at all, "for people have been aw are of it since the daw n of time." The enthusiasm w ith w hich his w ork has been received is no doubt gratifying, but for this soft-spoken and private family man, public recognition has required some adjustment. For as his ideas grew in popularity, the man w ho discovered flow found he w as experiencing less of it. Popular acceptance brought w ith it new and unw anted distractions from his w ork, the main activity in w hich he experienced the very thing that w as the source of all the fuss. The humor of the situation is not lost on him, and w hen he spoke to me about it during a recent interview , he did so w ith a w eary chuckle. The qualities that characterize his w ritings are also evident in conversation: clarity, eloquence, w it and erudition that is, blessedly, unencumbered by academic smugness. In lightly accented English, he speaks w ith a confidence that manages to be both unassuming and undefensive. His broad face, framed by a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard, appears urbane yet slightly rugged. Deep-set eyes look out from beneath dark, bushy brow s and a high, strong forehead. Although Csikszentmihalyi's w ritings make only sparing use of biographical details, the creases on his w ell-w orn face speak of a life much-traveled. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi w as born in 1934 in the Adriatic harbor tow n of Fiume, a tow n that has seen much instability in this century. The young Mihaly's father served as the Hungarian consul in the city, w hich w as then Italian (and is today Croatian). After the Second World War, the elder Csikszentmihalyi w as appointed Hungarian ambassador to Italy and the family moved to Rome. In 1948, follow ing the communist take-over of Hungary, he w as fired from the ambassadorship. Rather than return to Hungary, the family opened a restaurant in Rome. Now an adolescent, Mihaly attended school and spent evenings helping his father at the restaurant. Follow ing high school, he w orked as a photojournalist, a travel agent, and, foreshadow ing his later w ork, tried his hand as a painter. But all the w hile, his main focus w as on trying to understand the strangeness of human nature as he had w itnessed it during and after the w ar. "I saw so many people just disintegrate from the loss of status, income, and other extrinsic sources of meaning or support," he says, "and yet I also met some, just a few , w ho had a kind of inner strength that allow ed them to take their misfortunes in stride." Eventually he stumbled on the w ritings of Carl Jung, w hich convinced him that the field of psychology might be the best place to look for answ ers to the questions that beset him. Unfortunately, it w as not the practice of European colleges in the fifties to
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teach psychology as a separate discipline. Rather, it w as offered in isolated courses taught w ithin departments of medicine or philosophy. So Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi decided he w ould pursue his studies in the United States. Around this time, he encountered a new stimulus to his questioning. Follow ing Khruschev's denunciation of Stalin in 1956, Csikszentmihalyi met a number of former prisoners recently released from the gulags. Among them w ere a small number "w ho spoke w ith a sort of nostalgia about living in conditions that, by most any standard, w ere of the most horrible type." These people w ere able not only to keep their sanity but to achieve a kind of serenity. "The very oppressiveness of their situation," he says, "forced them to question w hat w as really valuable and meaningful in their lives, and somehow , in that process, they came to find a measure of inner peace." Years later, Csikszentmihalyi came to see that his findings on flow w ent a long w ay tow ard explaining w hat it w as that allow ed some people to enrich their lives in the midst of the most w retched circumstances. Such people, he found, have a highly developed "autotelic self." They could transform their experience, and thus find enjoyment in it, by focusing their attention on the tasks of the present moment. Csikszentmihalyi w as accepted at the University of Chicago, but shortly before he w as to leave for the U.S., the family encountered another setback. One of the restaurant's employees had sw indled them and they w ere w ithout funds to help Mihaly pay for his education. And so in 1956, at the age of 22, Mihaly arrived in Chicago w ith little English and next to no money-a dollar-tw enty-five to be exact. The next tw o years w ere tough. Days w ere devoted to study; nights w ere spent w orking as an auditor at a dow ntow n hotel. But more difficult w as the disappointment he felt about the content of his studies. There w as no Jung or Freud or Ferenczi; instead, there w ere rats and mazes and the blunt tools of behaviorism. Nevertheless, Csikszentmihalyi persevered, and by his junior year things w ere looking up. A scholarship relieved much of the financial pressure, and he hooked up w ith several professors in the department w hose interests matched his ow n. W ith their encouragement, he decided to pursue a doctorate. One professor in the psychology department w as especially interested in the study of creativity, and it w as under his tutelage that Csikszentmihalyi undertook his dissertation on the subject. The intense involvement of his research subjects in their w ork resonated w ith his ow n experiences w hile rock climbing, playing chess or painting. But another resonant chord w as struck as w ell. The instability he had experienced and the suffering he had w itnessed predisposed Csikszentmihalyi to regard happiness as a virtue to be cultivated and treasured, for clearly "the universe w as not designed w ith the comfort of human beings in mind." W hile there w as at the time no shortage of w ork being done on creativity, only one person, Abraham Maslow , w as seriously studying states of deep enjoyment. As Csikszentmihalyi freely acknow ledges, he benefited greatly from Maslow 's study of peak experience. "But," he says, "Maslow regarded peak experience as a kind of epiphany that happens spontaneously. I w anted to find out how optimal states of being occur and w hat people can do to bring them about." At first, Csikszentmihalyi's research attracted the interest of only a small group of graduate students, w ho assisted him in administering interview s and questionnaires. Needing a more rigorous and systematic means of gathering data, the team developed the Experience Sampling Method, in w hich research subjects w ear an electronic paging device that is activated at random intervals throughout the day. At the sound of the pager, a subject w rites dow n w hat he or she is doing, feeling and thinking at that moment. Follow ing the introduction of the ESM, interest in Csikszentmihalyi's w ork began to increase dramatically. More and more students signed up to join his research team. Flow increasingly gained attention in professional circles, and colleagues at other institutions began to study the experience in their ow n research projects. "People," he says, "love gizmos." Csikszentmihalyi's w ork is perhaps best understood as an attempt to find through science a basis for a life w ell lived. Tow ard this end, he seeks to affirm and to integrate the w isdom of the past w ith "our most trustw orthy mirror of reality"-that is, w ith scientific know ledge. He is trying, one might say, to w ork out a response to the problem of modernity posed by T. S. Eliot in "The Rock": to find the know ledge that is lost in information, and to find the w isdom that is lost in know ledge. Science has been especially successful at generating know ledge about the w orkings of matter; its successes have been far more modest w hen it comes to understanding the realm of human experience, w here, more often than not, it has been a source of that information that obscures know ledge and of that know ledge that conceals w isdom. Seen in this context, Csikszentmihalyi's w ork is all the more impressive for its intent, its originality, and its quality. Because they have emerged from and been subjected to empirical scrutiny, Csikszentmihalyi's ideas speak w ith the pow er and authority that belong to science alone. But simply passing muster w ith the standards of science is in and of itself no great accomplishment. His w ork is significant because it tells us valuable things about important questions. Using the tools of science, Csikszentmihalyi abstracted an essential and defining human experience-flow -from the countless activities that elicited it. In addition, he discerned the conditions, internal and external, that are most likely to give rise to the experience and the factors that obstruct it. Further, he interprets his findings in such a w ay as to address convincingly the place of flow in matters of meaning, value and purpose in human affairs. Today, the study of the applications and implications of flow has spread w orldw ide, and major research programs exist in Germany, Canada, Italy, Japan and Australia. Study of the subject is not confined to the field of psychology. Flow is being used by sociologists, for example, to better understand alienation and by anthropologists to shed light on the effects of ritual and religious experience. Csikszentmihalyi is, of course, devoted to his w ork and pleased w ith its success. But he also notes a certain absurdity in the w hole enterprise. "It's kind of ironic," he says, "that so many people need the trappings of scientific methodology before they'll pay attention to w hat they already know in their gut. W hen people hear about
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flow , they say, 'Oh yeah, I know that!' But unless you can quantify and measure something, it's not seen to have much significance." After a pause, he adds w ryly, "Anyw ay, I have a lot of fun crunching the numbers." As w ith any w orthy scientific endeavor, as w ork on flow proceeded, new questions and avenues for research arose. In time, Csikszentmihalyi found that a comprehensive understanding of optimal experience required that empirical research be supplemented by know ledge from fields other than psychology: philosophy, religion, literature, and other branches of science. The apparent ease w ith w hich he reaches across disciplines and w eaves together diverse strands of know ledge into an integrated w hole enhances the effectiveness of his ideas and the appeal of his w riting. Among the dour puritans of academia, moving beyond the boundaries of one's particular discipline is most often deeply frow ned upon. But for Csikszentmihalyi, doing so seems to be a natural outgrow th of a personal inclination to seek understanding of the w orld from a variety of perspectives. "It saddens me," he says, "to see people w ho are great at one thing but have no interest in anything else." About himself, he adds, "I am myself uncomfortable being pigeonholed in one professional category-such as psychologist-as though that designation exhausted my being." In applying science to questions that are traditionally taken up w ithin the humanities, w hile draw ing upon the humanities to elucidate the findings of science, Csikszentmihalyi found himself assuming the role of an academic outsider, a role for w hich his earlier life had prepared him w ell. Among the questions to arise from the research on flow , tw o w ere particularly significant. The first w as moral. Optimal experience is morally neutral. In applying his skills to the challenges of his w ork, a burglar is likely to experience flow , as is a con artist or an assassin. Adolph Eichmann, w rites Csikszentmihalyi, "probably experienced flow as he shuffled the intricate schedules of trains, making certain that the scarce rolling stock w as available w here needed, and that the bodies w ere transported at the least expense. He never seemed to ask w hether w hat he w as asked to do w as right or w rong. As long as he follow ed orders, his consciousness w as in harmony." The second problem follow s readily from the first. It is a problem of meaning. One might attain excellence in a particular field, and thus experience a high degree of flow , yet be hopelessly inept or boorish in every other w ay. Ernest Hemingw ay once called Ty Cobb "the greatest of all ballplayers-and an absolute shit." For optimal experience to extend throughout one's life, one must, according to Csikszentmihalyi, "have faith in a system of meanings that gives purpose to one's being." It w as in response to these tw o problems that Csikszentmihalyi turned to the idea of evolutionary complexity. Complexity, he believes, can serve as the foundation for a viable faith at a time w hen the traditional cosmologies no longer can. Although he began to explore this proposition in Flow , it w as not until the publication of The Evolving Self: A Psychology for the Third Millennium that he described it fully. "The thesis of this book," he w rites, "is that becoming an active, conscious part of the evolutionary process is the best w ay to give meaning to our lives at the present point in time, and to enjoy each moment along the w ay. Understanding how evolution w orks, and w hat role w e may play in it, provides a direction and purpose that otherw ise is lacking in this secular, desacralized culture." Csikszentmihalyi subscribes to the view that evolution proceeds in the direction of increasing complexity, that is, tow ard continuous differentiation and integration. The realization of complexity, therefore, is the benchmark for measuring evolutionary success. "Differentiation" refers to the degree to w hich a system is composed of parts that differ in structure or function from one another. "Integration" refers to the extent to w hich the different parts communicate and enhance one another's goals. A system that is more differentiated and integrated than another is said to be more complex. For example, a person is differentiated to the extent that they have many different interests, abilities and goals; they are integrated to the extent that harmony exists betw een various goals, thought, feelings and action. Both these tendencies are evident in optimal experience. Finding new challenges,developing new skills, opening oneself to novel experiences-these are all differentiating functions. The incorporation of skills and experiences into the w holeness of one's being brings order to consciousness and harmony to actions; that is, it enhances integration. In this w ay, the enjoyment that flow brings is the manifestation of our evolutionary predilection for complexity. The movement tow ard complexity is not inevitable, how ever. "The course of evolution," Csikszentmihalyi w rites, "appears to be exceedingly erratic, full of false starts and temporary reversals." The development of complex structures, w hether biological, psychological or social, takes place against the backdrop of entropy-the tendency of systems to decay and dissolve into randomness. It is precisely because complexity is so tenuous that its cultivation and sustainment can serve as a meaningful basis for ethical action. For Csikszentmihalyi, this means that the ethics of flow require that it not be pursued solely as an isolated, individual event but as something that enhances complexity throughout one's relations w ith the larger w orld. The idea that through flow one can become an active participant in the great unfolding drama of evolution recalls Aristotle's notion of eudaimonia, of being w ell-favored not just w ithin oneself but also in one's relation w ith the divine. W ith The Evolving Self, Csikszentmihalyi joins the tradition of "grand theorists"-those thinkers w ho attempt to w ork out a comprehensive understanding of human nature and human goals that is grounded in the very structure of life. As grand theories go, Csikszentmihalyi's manages to be bold w ithout being arrogant. It is both broad and flexible. Still, for all its merits, it is not able to outrun the problems that inevitably accrue to grand theories. Chief among these problems is that in attempting to subsume so much under a single scheme, grand theories give short shrift to much of the rich detail of human know ledge. Important distinctions get blurred or lost altogether as symbols, ideas, and practices are removed from the organic context in w hich they are rooted and recut to fit the designs of a new one. W hile view ing yoga, say, or Zen Buddhism
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through the conceptual lens of flow and complexity can be valuable, it is still a far cry from understanding them from w ithin their native framew ork. This calls to mind a Haitian saying: w hen the anthropologists arrive, the gods depart. To my surprise, w hen I mention this perspective to Csikszentmihalyi, he is not at all uncomfortable w ith it. We have, he says, various w ays of relating to the w orld that predate systematic reason, and they are part of our heritage. "Just because science is dominant," he says, "to dismiss all forms of know ledge that w ent before w ould be hubris. It w ould be like kicking out the ladder upon w hich w e have climbed." If science is to help us live fuller and better lives, the know ledge accumulated through scientific endeavor must, in his view , be integrated w ith the w isdom of the past. America's most eminent evolutionist, Stephen Jay Gould, rejects the view that evolution possesses a sensible directionality tow ard complexity, dismissing such theories as "spin-doctored" view s designed to bolster our sense of human importance. Csikszentmihalyi, of course, disagrees, but he is not adamant; the argument, he says, is not resolvable at this point, and may never be. Complexity seems to him to be a good interpretation of w hat w e know , but accepting it is a choice. And even should one accept it, one should hold the idea w ith a kind of playful provisionality. In this regard, complexity is a kind of faith. So if w e set aside arguments about competing theories of evolution, the pow er of the idea remains, for w e are story-telling creatures and evolution is our creation story. In placing flow w ithin the context of evolution, Csikszentmihalyi is follow ing a tradition going back to prehistory of linking certain aspects of human experience to the larger designs of the cosmos. Thus the story of w ho w e are and the story of w hat the universe is are bound together. In "The Rock" Eliot asks, "W here is the Life w e have lost in living?" This is a question that human faith and w isdom must address. Discovery of that secret life requires w hat Aristotle called "the virtuous activity of the soul." For this, flow is the ground and the fruition. The Man Who Found the Flow , Andrew Cooper, Shambhala Sun, September 1998. To order this copy of the Shambhala Sun, click here . To order a trial subscription to Shambhala Sun, click here .

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