Flow - The Philosophy of being in the moment

“Rhythm is a fundamental fact of life, the key, indeed, to the universe.” ~Anna Pavlova

 

Have you ever experienced that you lost the sense of time being engaged in an activity? For ballerinas the time slows down when they are dancing and for a musician time passes away quickly when they are performing or practicing. This state of being where you lose sense of time and the actions become effortless is called flow or rhythm or Wu Wei. This idea of flow is very ancient and has been in practice of Taoists since ages. We all have experienced this state of flow but this happens for many of us unconsciously.  So, what can we achieve by entering this state of flow consciously?     

 The answer is Happiness, which is generally perceived as fleeting and momentary. Anna Pavlova quotes, “When a small child, I thought that success spelled happiness. I was wrong, happiness is like a butterfly which appears and delights us for one brief moment, but soon flits away.” So, can we find a way to make this butterfly of happiness stay longer?

The author of the book Flow – The Psychology of optimal experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi explores the most ancient question, when do people feel most happy? He answers, when people enter the state of flow consciously or unconsciously, they feel most happy and have optimal experiences. Optimal experiences are the occasions where we feel a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment, which we cherish for long and that becomes a landmark in our lives. These moments are often not passive, receptive relaxing times. They tend to occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something that is difficult or worthwhile.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi quotes, “A person can make himself happy or miserable, regardless of what is happening outside, just by changing the contents of consciousness.” 

Everything we experience – joy or pain, interest or boredom—is represented in the mind as information. If we are able to control this information, we can determine what our lives will be like. Optimal states result when there is order in consciousness. This happens when we are focused on realistic goals with our skills matching the opportunities for action. Goals allow people to concentrate attention on the task at hand, forgetting other things temporarily. Thus, it is an end in itself i.e. is autotelic (Auto means self and telos means goal), without thought of growth or reward. And yet, they create the perfect conditions for both growth and reward. An autotelic experience lifts life to a different level. Alienation gives way to involvement, enjoyment replaces boredom, helplessness turns into a feeling of control, and psychic energy works to reinforce the sense of self, instead of being lost in the service of external goals. When experience is intrinsically rewarding life is justified in the present, instead of being held hostage to a hypothetical future gain.

The autotelic self transforms potentially entropic experience into flow. Developing an autotelic

self involves the following:

• Setting goals – monitoring feedback

• Becoming immersed in the activity

• Paying attention to what is happening

• Enjoying the immediate experience

 Understanding Flow

Flow is an optimal state of mind between boredom and anxiety, where you perform your best and feel your best. During flow, attention is freely invested to achieve a person’s goals because there is no disorder to strengthen out or no threat for the self to defend against. When a person can organize his or her consciousness so as to experience flow as often as possible, the quality of life starts to improve. In flow, we are in control of our psychic energy and everything we do adds order to consciousness. Following a flow experience, our self becomes more complex than that it had been before, due to two broad psychological processes – differentiation and integration. The self becomes differentiated as the person after a flow experience feels more capable and skilled. Flow leads to integration because thoughts, intentions, feelings and the senses are focused on the same goal. After a flow episode, one feels more together than before, not only internally but also with respect to other people and the world in general. Differentiation promotes individuality while integration facilitates connections and security. To improve the quality of life, we can try to make external conditions match our goals and also change how to experience or interpret external conditions. Both are needed. Each by itself is insufficient. The most important trait of people who find flow even during adversity is non self-conscious individualism, i.e. a strongly directed purpose that is not self-seeking. Because of their intrinsic motivation, they are not easily disturbed by external events.

Creating a Unified Flow Experience

Having achieved flow in one activity does not necessarily guarantee that it will be carried over into the rest of life. All life must be turned into a unified flow experience. It does not matter what the goal is. What is important is, it should be compelling enough to order a lifetime’s worth of psychic energy. If a person sets out to achieve a difficult enough goal, from which all other goals logically follow and if he or she invests all the energy in developing skills to reach that goal, then actions and feelings will be in harmony and the separate parts of life will fit together and each activity will make sense in the present, as well as in view of the past and the future.

1)            Building inner harmony

Our level of happiness ultimately depends on how our mind filters and interprets everyday experiences. Happiness depends on inner harmony, not on our ability to exert control over the great forces of the universe. People must learn to find enjoyment and purpose, regardless of external circumstances. To become happy, we must strive to become independent of the social environment, i.e. become less sensitive to its rewards and punishments. We must learn to enjoy and find meaning in the ongoing stream of experience, in the process of living itself. This will ensure that the burden of social controls falls off from our shoulders.

 

 2)           Controlling the consciousness

Control over consciousness is not a cognitive skill. It cannot be memorized or routinely applied, but must be learnt by trial and error. The function of consciousness is to represent information about what is happening inside and outside the organization in such a way that it can be evaluated and acted upon by the body. It is consciousness which enables us to daydream, write beautiful poems and scientific theories. Unfortunately, the nervous system has definite limits on how much information it can process at any given time. The information we allow into consciousness becomes extremely important. It is what determines the content and quality of life.

3)           Finding balance between challenges and skills

Competition is enjoyable only when it is a means to perfect one’s skills; when it becomes an end in itself, it ceases to be fun. The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.

 4)          Coping with Stress

Having the ability to consciously enter this state of trance helps us in coping with difficult times. While coping with stress, a person has three resources to draw from:

• External support, especially the network of social support

• Psychological support, intelligence, education, relevant personality factors

• Coping strategies

Coping strategy is what makes the big difference. People respond to stress in two main ways. The positive response is called a mature defense. The negative response is called neurotic defense or regressive coping. No trait is more useful, more essential for survival or more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge ie. responding positively to stress. The mature defense is like becoming a stoic i.e having the wisdom to tell the difference between what I can control and what I can't, not worrying  about the about things that you cannot control.  They are not focused on satisfying their needs. They are alert, constantly processing information from the surroundings. Instead of becoming internally focused, they stay in touch with what is going on. So new possibilities and new responses emerge. When an opportunity presents itself to them, they go for it and enjoy themselves. 

One can cope with new situations either by trying to remove the obstacles or by focusing on the entire situation and asking whether alternative goals may be more appropriate.The moment biological or social goals are frustrated, a person must formulate new goals and create a new flow activity. The secret of change is to focus all your energy, not on fighting the old but on building the new!. Art, Philosophy, communication, music, walking and having a hobby can really help you, when you are not feeling yourself.

References : Flow – The Psychology of optimal experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 

Artwork Credits : Kashish Panjvani