Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Once in a while a book comes along where the author takes one concept, loves it, examines it and attempts to provide a cohesive account of everything through that one concept. Csikszentmihalyi did just that. This book ranges on topics from philosophy, religion, and everyday experience to attempting to account for people’s mental break downs as well as their joys in life. Of course, to have such a wide range, he must take a theoretical approach — but it cannot be scientific. Much of the ideas he discusses cannot be tested or validated through the scientific method. There are no metrics for us to use on so wide a topic such as life. The reader then, must decide for himself if Csikszentmihalyi makes any sense or not, which is the experience all of us have of any book anyway.
What I found delightful about this book was that I read it at a time when I felt somewhat lost. One of the daily struggles we have as people in a first world environment is to question our role in life. What is the proper work-life balance? How can we be happy? What is the point of our daily struggles? I believe the role of philosophy and other meta-structures (religion is one) should be to help us answer such questions. We cannot gain answers for our specific lives through general inquiry. For a general inquiry to be successful at doing so, it would have to account for any possible variation of attitude and meaning we encounter — a real impossibility. So the force of our own answers must be found through the force of one’s own will, determination, faith and character. Our attitude must first and foremost be that which allows us the openness and flexibility to best meet the conditions of our particular lives in a way that leave us feeling fulfilled. Not just for instant gratification but also to allow us to develop the meaning that each of us needs, so that we do not feel things are pointless or without fruit.
This should be, I believe, the role of philosophy, the role of any inquiry into the metaphysical… but nowadays with the many external pressures on academia, many general thought analysies are too particular, too outdated or not applicable. Often, the authors we look to for guidance, have their own personal agendas, struggles particular to their lives. Should their writing be applicable to us in our lives, it would be a happy accident.
This book attempts to address that role of philosophy for us, to outline for us the the conditions by which each of us may find that attitude. In the end this book is but a book though, and while interesting reading, for me, it cannot determine how we should create those conditions for ourselves. Nonetheless, I do find it to be a compelling read, an inspiration for myself when I read it.
