*Reads title and sleeve of book*
Uh oh, my literary Geiger Counter is showing a reading of “Self-Help nonsense”. My device is telling me to drop it and get away as quickly as possible. It’s saying that even close proximity is dangerous and that I need to put the book down and read some of the hard sciences instead.
I wonder what’s going on in the world of Astrophysics these days…
*Goes to local library. Makes a show of checking out 3-4 books on Astrophysics. Checks out “Flow” as well. Puts the book at the bottom of the pile to hide guilt. Winks at cute librarian. Gets weird look. Reassesses life. Rinse, wash, and repeat.*
Alright, I have a confession to make: I have a weakness for pop-psychology books. They are fine to me. I think the softer sciences are just as interesting as the more rigid, empirical sciences that produce more quantifiable results. Terms like “psychic energy” and “flow” don’t bother me so much. If you present me an idea and terminology to go with it, I will do my best to learn the language you are communicating with.
Over the years I have went from growing up in the church, to rejecting all things religious, to being a fundamental supporter of the sciences, to scoffing at the humanities and social sciences, to changing my tune about them, to studying the humanities, to getting caught up in Post-Modernism, to rejecting Post-Modernism, to returning full-circle to the psychological and mythic benefits of religion, and by association, the more mystical qualities of these cultural artifacts, to still not believing in the “truth” of said religions and myths, but sharing an appreciation for their cultural and psychological significance, to finally being secure enough in my thinking so that I can entertain all kinds of ideas, and see the benefits in them, without actually being offended by how farfetched some of them are, and to openly reading a book about channeling an internal energy mentioned in just about every Eastern philosophy since their inception centuries ago.And this last sentence is the most important thing I’ll highlight in this review: what Csikszentmihalyi is saying has been said before a thousand times, in a thousand different ways. He admits this and it is that admittance that kept me reading.
Long story short, we need to focus more. And to do that, even though it’s one of the hardest things to do in this world full of distractions (I have 16 tabs open on my browser right now), is worth it for harboring the ability to live life well on a qualitative basis. Thus, the knowledge and advice from ancient Babylonia to Marcus Aurelius is that we can be happy through our own efforts. We have known this for a while now, but we don’t put in the incredible effort to do so. That’s the moral of the story, we need to find the things in our life that we care enough about to focus on without fail. We need to work extremely hard, but our work and hobbies can provide the roadmap to a life of contentment. “Flow” is supposedly the driver.
What the author (already tired of pasting that multi-syllable beast of a name) defines as “flow” is a complete immersion in an activity, where the act itself becomes the reward, and where consciousness is so focused on the task at hand that time melts away, and sadness, depression, anxiousness about the stressors in life, uncertainty, etc. is momentarily suspended because they are irrelevant to performing whatever it is that is so demanding your attention. Sounds like a simple concept. One that is so commonsensical that I find myself scratching my head at the reality that a 200+ page book was written about it.
The book feels like a justification for 25 years of research and expertise. There are some interesting forays into neuroscience and psychology that interrupt the flow of the prose quite frequently, and maybe I’m a little daft, but it took me a long time to find a concrete definition for what in the hell “flow” actually was. Perhaps the author was just teasing the concept to get me to keep reading, and of course, along the way I would have to make annyoing pit stops on his multi-disciplinary highway. Clever bastard.
But returning to my inability to grasp the concept of “flow”: Was it a chemical cocktail (adrenaline+ endorphins = flow?) produced at the right moment of concentration? Was it a fleeting instant only experienced by professional athletes, musicians or daredevils? Was it a skill that could be cultivated by the average Joe or Joanne? Had I really experienced it? A subset of it? A watered down version of its true form?
And I’ll admit it, I’m still not entirely convinced I understand the concept. Maybe I didn’t pay enough attention to the book…but regardless, the past week has been very interesting in my attempt to practice cultivating “flow”.
Recently I made a word document with no apparent logical structure that measures certain “records” I have been trying to break. I loosely organized a few categories that I’m trying to get better at: writing, reading, fitness feats, skateboarding, music, chess, to name a few. I’ll focus on music, writing, skateboarding and fitness for the time being. First though, a self-indulgent rabbit trail on my personal experience with music
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My musical career has consisted of learning the drums at age twelve. I started jamming with friends a few years later. We started shitty punk bands with power chord dominant song structures, and we changed our band’s name at least once a month. That was fun, but largely unfulfilling. I practiced all the time by myself and got to a pretty respectable level of skill, but I never really felt like I was “in the zone” while I played. Drumming just came naturally. It wasn’t challenging, didn’t require a lot of focus. I had the intuition to play and yet be distracted by thoughts and stimuli around me. I quickly grew bored; My playing was sporadic and unfocused. In short bursts I could play the shit out the drums for a few measures, but I quickly tried to add cymbal catches, or ghost notes where they didn’t belong, syncopation, etc. It wasn’t until I learned how to play bass guitar that I chilled out and started focusing.
For me, bass was challenging because it didn’t come naturally to me. I really had to focus. And when I started to improve in ability, just playing the right root notes for a whole song, could send me into another dimension of focus. I played bass in another punk bad, tried my hand at guitar, got pretty good, joined other bands, did solo stuff, and the ability to focus carried over into future drum playing. I would play drums for church, in a folk band, in a short-lived reggae band, etc, and the ability to lose myself in playing, in what I guess could be considered a “flow” state, is still there to this day. And it really does make me happy for a short period. It’s a definite pick-me-up. So recently I have been trying my hand at playing music with even more mindfullness and focus, as a result of reading this book. And I gotta say, despite the skepticism and criticism that I struggled with, I feel more accomplished as a result.
I’ll try to combine the rest of the highlighted elements because this post has gotten away from me…
Basically, over the past week or two, I have set goals for myself in the gym, skateboarding, writing, and reading, and I do my best to reach a level of focus that makes shattering those goals possible. I realize that the end result is satisfying but fleeting in its ability to grant lasting happiness. The point is to tap into the focus and block out consciousness. The author states that consciousness is the culprit of unhappiness. So, by his definition, being in a flow state of extreme focus, more and more, with the occasional record to break or goal to make, is a sustainable long term goal. Addiction to the flow state is a pitfall to overcome, but overall, with grace and balance, your life can become more rewarding, accomplished, and full of a deeper sense of happiness as a result of learning how to channel your focus. One more rep in the gym, squatting 10 more pounds than last month through a deliberate focus, solving 6 chess tactics in a row instead of 5, writing 3000 words a day for a personal goal (with the help of fifteen minute timers), doing 10 tre flips in a row, etc. You can slow down your life and experience “flow”.
I mean, I guess. It has been working for me during this short time I have tried to “focus more.” We will see how long I can really keep this up though. Maybe there is something to this whole idea.
My rating: 3.5
A roundabout look at “mindfullness” and focus with surprisingly influential ideas that I have had a fun time applying. The book could have been shorter though. Despite my skepticism and self-admitted guilt (pretentiousness and ego checking in here) towards sometimes picking these types of book up, I found the experience a fruitful one. Recommended to all who feel like time is slipping away during your day-to-day. Won’t change your life, only you will. Insert trite one-liner here. Namaste. Do work son. Focus more.
Bibliotropism 