Finding Flow Book Discussion
Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 10:02:20 PM PDT
In the early 90s, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the term "flow" to describe peak experiences where time feels suspended, with a sense of freedom and complete absorption. Flow experiences are high skill – but not so high as to be continually frustrating – and high concentration activities to meet a specific goal. Flow experiences include feedback – from other people or from immediate results – that supports a feeling of satisfaction that comes from using favorite skills.
Finding Flow, his second popular book on the subject, examines the connections between flow and daily, mundane activities – mostly work and leisure. This work focused more on practical ideas, skills, and frames of mind that support flow experiences. While this book is not your typical self-help book, I found that on the whole, it offered thought provoking ideas about the choices we make every day about our jobs, our leisure time, and our relationships – and how these choices result in immediate impact on our sense of well-being or on feelings of "psychic entropy."
I read the book with an eye toward how the concept of flow applies specifically to motherhood and women’s concerns in general. I was happy to find quite a lot that directly relates and thought these ideas were fertile ground:
- Flow requires concrete goals and immediate feedback on performance. Both of these things seem tough to come by in raising children. On the other hand, Csikszentmihalyi specifically says that parenting can be experienced as draining and not fulfilling at all, or as a flow experience when approached as a performance or an art, where skill is constantly used and improved upon. How do these things square?
- Most of us use our leisure time very poorly – in ways that produce psychic entropy rather than flow. Passive leisure and consumption clearly do not product flow, yet most of us rely on these things to some extent to "relax." He believes that the extra effort it takes to get into a flow experience is the barrier. How can we conjure that extra effort, given the big pay off in our well-being?
- Most people experience flow more often with friends than family. Is this your experince? When was the last time you saw your best friend? Does it feel hard to carve out time exclusively for friends?
- Csikszentmihalyi says that WOHMs have lower self-esteem than SAHMs due to higher expectations of getting more stuff done. He said this in the context of arguing that self-esteem is not directly correlated with flow, ie flow can be experienced without high self-esteem. What do we make of all of that? (Admittedly, I am mixing apples and oranges here).
- Housework consistently was found to product psychic entropy. Given that women do a fair amount of housework – and what he calls "maintenance" activities in general – how do we put these activities in their place and get on with other things?
- The worst place to be psychologically is with nothing better to do. When was the last time you experienced this feeling?
I must confess that he lost me a bit in the last section when he tries to relate his (admittedly vast) knowledge of human well-being to a larger spiritual framework. I was especially puzzled when he related his view of "psychic entropy" to the idea of "evil." But his basic premise – that making choices to reduce psychic entropy in other people and in communities as a whole – is fascinating, and takes the concept of flow out of the exclusive realm of the individual.
Share your thoughts. Have you experienced flow recently? Has this book inspired any action toward change in daily routine – or larger life goals?
