Here are my notes on Flow by Mihaly—


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flow

  • Attention is energy — allows for work to be done, gets depleted over time (× attention as a resource (Psychedelics Revealing))
    • Attention shapes the self, then the self shapes attention. (× Psychedelics Revealing: meditation or psychedelics increasing attention, which in turns can be used to cultivate mindfulness)
  • Complexity is made up of differentiation and integration — individuation and merging with others. (× imperial and interpersonal life task (How to Know a Person); own life story) The complex self is both unique and universal, empathic. Aim to cultivate both.
  • Flow experiences are where we make our best contribution to humankind. (× protect the asset: you are the tool for making your highest contribution to the world; invest in yourself (Essentialism); × invest in yourself (I Will Teach You To Be Making that Money)) — experiences where we are self-forgetful (unself-conscious), and yet where our true, authentic, unique self is also the most present. Flow brings out our best selves (hence our best self is also primed afterwards).
  • Enjoyment vs pleasure: enjoyment happens in flow (with a challenge), pleasure is passive. (× fun vs entertainment: “It is only fun if you make it. If someone else does it for you, it’s entertainment.” (Psycho-Cybernetics)) Enjoyment happens after you MAKE something — or after investing your attention on something.
  • Characteristics of flow experiences:
    • Clear goals & clear feedback (on progress or goal status).
      • Set goals.
        • Clear (slightly stretch) goals for the next day. A (slightly challenging) plan of things to accomplish for the next day is groundwork for flow experiences. Set goals, especially in creative ventures.
      • In (e.g. music) improv, the goals (rules) are being created on-the-go; it is ever a moving target. You make the rules of the game as the performance goes! (× Improvise)
    • Feasible goal
    • Ability to concentrate on the task — forgetting all the rest
    • Sense of control or agency over actions (at least over subjective risks — those we can control, linked to personal skill). Exercising control, rather than being in control, is what matters. (× video games)
    • Self-forgetfulness followed by stronger sense of self
    • Diluted time
  • Set goals, find ways to measure your progress, increase complexity if things are boring. Keep things exciting.
    • Flow can be found anywhere. (× microdosing)
  • The Flow Zone (Flow Funnel): area when skills and challenge match. Constantly re-adjust skills (or challenge) to keep them in the Funnel.
    • Equally enjoyable experiences but at higher complexity. As our skills increase, the challenges we need (for it to be interesting) increase — yielding more complexity, but an equally enjoyable experience. The joy of life.
    • Enjoyment depends on increasing complexity.
  • Autotelic vs exotelic: as an end, or as a means to an end. (self-contained purpose, or external purpose)

difficult situations

  • People who thrived in difficult situations found ways to exercise control amidst their condition. (× Frankl) First, paying close attention to their environment, to notice opportunities for exercising control. Then, setting (increasingly complex) goals. “Focussing attention on the world.”
    • To find purpose in suffering, one must interpret it as a possible challenge.
    • Making order (meaning) out of disorder (trauma) (“integration”) (× dissipative structures (e.g. photosynthesis — making use of byproducts))
    • One’s life goal (as response to a trauma/challenge) then becomes “for everybody” — not just for oneself.
    • Psychologists shouldn’t study what events happened to us, but how we experienced these events. (× ask for experiences, not events (How to Know a Person)
  • Tackle challenges methodically, as a deliberate practice of flow. (Dating, etc.)
  • Importance of daydreaming: daydreaming lets children (and adults) rehearse imaginary situations in order to pick the best strategy for confronting them. “Alternative options are considered, unanticipated consequences discovered” (× open-monitoring / novelty of ideas (Psychedelics Revealing))
  • Everything, by itself, is mundane. It’s all about the intention and deliberateness you put into things.
  • When facing a hurdle, either remove it or change the goal.

friendships and people

  • Relationships as a flow game: keep it exciting! Increase complexity.
    • “To provide flow, a family has to have a goal for its existence” (connection, fun, experimentation, play, creativity…) (× relationship purpose statement (Pavlina)) Short-term and long-term goals (× savings subgoals (I Will Teach You To Be Rich))
    • The family must be both differentiated (retain individuality) and integrated (empathy, connection). Co-creation. As well as co-coaching; helping each other reach their full potential and self-expression.
  • Keep flow in relationships. Keep relationships exciting: find new challenges, learn new (relational) skills…
    • To be enjoyable, a relationship must become more complex. To become more complex, partners must discover new potentialities in each other (“getting to know her at deeper levels than were necessary in the earlier days of the relationship”). For this, they need to invest attention in each other — and prod (thoughts, feelings, dreams — × How to Know a Person). Pay attention to your partner’s complexity. After this, a myriad joint adventures become possible: traveling together, reading the same books, etc. “Find new challenges in each other’s company.”
  • Friendships first happen by chance, then later in life have to be deliberately cultivated.
  • Talk well to let others enjoy the conversation. Use nice words.
  • Journals and personal correspondence used to let people reflect on and write their own story. (× making sense of our life as we tell our life story (How to Know a Person))
    • “Write philosophy” as a way to brainstorm and think about questions in your life. (self-communication)
    • Writing to create (cf diary/making sense of one’s story and events — “communicating with oneself” (self-communication)) vs writing to communicate.
  • Instead of prioritizing productivity in your company, prioritize enjoyment of work — productivity will follow.
  • Four types of games (Roger Caillois):
    • Competition (agon)
    • Chance (alea)
    • Sensations (ilinx)
    • Alternative worlds (mimicry)
  • Both games and culture provide a framework for your actions. Some cultures make life seem like a game (American dream; Stakhanovites…) — setting external goals (exotelic).
  • Gamify jobs. The more a job resembles a game, the more enjoyable it will be regardless of the worker’s level of development.

controlling consciousness

  • Pratyahara, then dharana: first one learns to keep things out of the mind; then one learns to keep them in.
  • One can only surrender one’s self if one is in full control of it — otherwise there is nothing to surrender. (× D/s)

music and the arts

  • Music serves to create atmosphere.
  • Music as an aid to imagination — to evoke feelings or images based on patterns of sound.
  • Music can add order to chaos — as being something “in control” amidst a chaotic environment. Bubbles of control amidst chaos — something consistent or predictable to calm the mind. (e.g. listening to music while studying)
    • From music as order in chaos; to music as a force. “The civilizing power of Apollo depended on his ability to play the lyre, Pan drove his audiences to frenzy with his pipes, and Orpheus with his music was able to restrain even death.”
  • The sacredness (rarity) of music performances in the past primed paying close attention to it. Now, music is overly accessible and therefore taken for granted.
  • Collective effervescence (Emile Durkheim): it is very rare for people to experience the same thing at the same time and place. × Performing arts: the reaction of one spectator/witness, x-fold (it then becomes psychedelic for the performer).
  • The conditions around live performance are for facilitating attention & flow experiences. Tech, light design, stage design are all for focussing attention — and increasing the chance of flow experiences for the audience.
  • Enjoyment of music: have strategies for turning the experience into flow. Plan deliberately. Design the space. Formulate goals. (e.g. active listening & writing a song review)
  • We are sensitive to the steady rhythm of the drum or bass because it reminds us or our mother’s throbbing heart in the womb. (Possibly.)
  • There is always a way to engage with a piece of art, a performance, when seeing it multiple times. Always something to pick up — increasing the complexity of one’s analysis (× Chekhov)
  • Variety in cuisines as in music, with, partly, the same ingredients.
  • Pay attention to what you eat — analyze to enjoy.
  • Educate your senses.
  • Art (performance) passed the Lindy test (Skin in the Game) — survived across ages.

memorizing and naming

  • Memorizing and recalling is a flow activity — with clear goals & feedback. e.g. reciting the names of one’s ancestors (for adding order to chaos; guiding life.)
  • Intergenerational cadavre exquis: “For centuries the Icelanders have not only preserved in memory but also added new verses to the epics chronicling the deeds of their ancestors.” (Ongoing history — a music still writing itself (as opposed to Bach’s last)).
  • Aphorisms and mnemonics helped remember things you HAD to remember (edible herbs, etc.)
  • Memorize things so you can entertain yourself — “create your own fun” (× fun vs entertainment (Psycho-Cybernetics)) — cf playing a piece of music, reciting one’s favourite lyrics, etc.

life overarching

  • Life does not have meaning; has to be given meaning. “It is true that life has no meaning, if by that we mean a supreme goal built into the fabric of nature and human experience, a goal that is valid for every individual. But it does not follow that life cannot be given meaning.” (× Existentialism)
  • An overarching flow goal lets you life life (and the subgoals) in (meta-), constant flow (× character’s superobjective (Chekhov); CM)

past

  • Closure with the past; find a new way. “While we might admire the serenity of the lion in repose, the tribesman’s untroubled acceptance of his fate, or the child’s wholehearted involvement in the present, they cannot offer a model for resolving our predicament. The order based on innocence is now beyond our grasp. Once the fruit is plucked from the tree of knowledge, the way back to Eden is barred forever.”
  • Learn from people who lived past you. Read books.

misc

  • Babies are never bored (× LSD).
  • “Thus there are also successful businessmen who spend some of their free time in hospitals keeping company with dying patients because they believe that reaching out to people who suffer is a necessary part of a meaningful life.” (× dealing with the poor as a construct (Skin in the Game))
  • Experience sampling: pager being activated at random moments, asking for happiness (analogous to mindfulness habits).
  • AI (LLMs) as God — being able to think everything; whose breadth encompasses all of human knowledge.
  • Amateurs and dilettantes: etymologically from Latin “amare” (to love); Latin “delectare” (to find delight in).