Goodbye to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

 

I found out via my son John's blog. John noticed the death announcement at the author's Facebook page. He quotes something I copied onto my blog a while back, Csikszentmihalyi's enumeration of the elements of "flow":

First, the experience usually occurs when we confront tasks we have a chance of completing. Second, we must be able to concentrate on what we are doing. Third and fourth, the concentration is usually possible because the task undertaken has clear goals and immediate feedback. Fifth, one acts with a deep but effortless involvement that removes from awareness the worries and frustrations of everyday life. Sixth, enjoyable experiences allow people to exercise a sense of control over their actions. Seventh, concern for the self disappears, yet paradoxically the sense of self emerges stronger after the flow experience is over. Finally, the sense of the duration of time is altered; hours pass by in minutes, and minutes can stretch out to seem like hours. The combination of all these elements causes a sense of deep enjoyment that is so rewarding people feel that expending a great deal of energy is worthwhile simply to be able to feel it.

ADDED: I'm still not seeing obituaries at mainstream news sites. It's possible that the author's Facebook page is wrong. In any event — alive or dead — Csikszentmihalyi is wonderful. I highly recommend his book "Flow," one of the most useful books I've read in my life.

AND: I've blogged about Csikszentmihalyi, many times over the years, as you can see if you click my tag (which I just discovered had been missing the final "i" all this time, corrected now).

ALSO:

From old posts of mine:

2019: "I have read in a book — long ago (this book) — that the things we fall into doing for fun can put us in a condition of entropy, which doesn't feel good at all. Anyway, I doubt if the enticement to reading books — come on, it's fun — will work on many adults, and when I think about spending more time sitting with an actual book, I don't think about racing through it, gulping. I think about looking at really great sentences and experiencing aesthetic pleasure."

2013: "'The bottom line of a good job is that it makes you feel like you have unlimited energy for your work because it’s so fulfilling.'"

2013: "Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book 'Flow' identifies surgery and rock climbing as 2 activities that produce flow for the people who have the appropriate expertise. There, the tasks are specific, and the feedback about whether you are doing them right is clear. Compare a scholarly book project, which might take years, where you might wonder whether what you are writing is too dull or too controversial or unsupported by the data you're trying to use or who knows what your colleagues — your rivals? — will say about it at some unknown point in the future if you ever get this damned thing done?"

2011: "Lori Culwell sees the game 'Angry Birds' as her 'meditation tool'... '[T]he birds put my mind into a deeply Zen-like and hypnotic state, not unlike 'flow' as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Maybe the people at Rovio have given us a game that is part meditation, part allegory for life. Maybe Freud would point out that my finding Zen in a game based on pig destruction signals latent anger issues.' ('Flow' by Mihaly Csikszentmihaly is one of my very favorite books....)"

2011: "3 happiness paths/Are you doing any or all of these?" 

2009: "The best advice for those who want to go on to law school is to study something you're very interested in and good at. It will help you get a good GPA, which counts about as much as the LSAT in admissions. It will make college intrinsically rewarding. (Try to make whatever you do intrinsically rewarding.... To think more deeply about what it means to do what is intrinsically rewarding, read Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book, 'Flow'....)"

2007: "'A deceptively simple video game called 'flOw,'... inspired by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow Theory'.... The real question -- assuming you decide you want to live in flow -- is whether you should be finding your flow in games that have been manufactured to produce a flow experience. You can see that part of flow is becoming absorbed for long periods of time in something of a trancelike state. The book highlights individuals who find flow doing productive or healthy things like surgery and rock climbing. If you're finding your flow in something that is sedentary, uncreative, and nonlucrative, well, it might be okay. But maybe it's a problem...."