A certain psychologist of Hungarian extraction, Mihaly Csikszentimihaly--sounds like stoned sex-crazed muppet: Me High-ee! Chicks sent me highee!--began by monitoring the activities and emotional states of talented adolescent artists with what became known as experience sampling forms, now available in a new, improved hi tech version. He found people reported the greatest satisfaction when actively involved in a challenging task that stretches abilities, to the extent that time, space, and self-awareness become secondary to the accomplishment of the task. He wrote a book about it, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, which flew off the shelves in the Self Help sections of bookstores everywhere--even though there were no easy steps nor Idiots Guide To... included beyond an academic enunciation of the parameters involved: the zone of experience in which Flow existed. [More Within]
posted by y2karl on Oct 10, 2003 - 22 comments