Release yourself to the church, to the state, to Apple Corporation. Or Flow.
zacharyburt.com
zacharyburt.com
I stopped reading here - it is a stupid generalization and a misunderstanding of the Flow concept, of people in totalitarian regimes and of people in general.
People living in communist Russia were not as naive to have as a personal goal "service of the state", just as an employee in corporate America today doesn't necessarily think of "maximizing shareholder value" the whole day (or whatever is on the bullshit bingo du jour).
In fact, the idea of Csikszentmihalyi's flow is that resourceful people can create/find meaningful activities pretty much regardless of the external environment (above some threshold) which leads to a feeling of happiness.
From what I've heared and read, communist factories were often the hotbeds of creative "hacking": given the nonsensical and weakly enforced rules, people used whatever tools and material they had available to tinker and hack together household items for their own use.
Got that bit from Mihaly himself, though it's possible I took it out of context. I don't have my copy of the book with me right now but when I get home I will give you some precise quotes. The idea is that intentions and behavior are definitely shaped by the state.
>In fact, the idea of Csikszentmihalyi's flow is that resourceful people can create/find meaningful activities pretty much regardless of the external environment (above some threshold) which leads to a feeling of happiness.
Yes, and if you'd bother to read the article, you'd see that it mentioned this.
I'm curious also about the context, I'd be ready to argue against M.Cs. himself, if he really claimed that, but it would be strange, because one of his main points is that better societal conditions, higher standard of living, etc. don't make people that much happier overall, in fact you start the article with this yourself.
"Yes, and if you'd bother to read the article, you'd see that it mentioned this."
Sorry - didn't mean to sound negative. Yes, you give the example of the guy addicted to programming, unable to move on to what he would want to do instead. Incidentally a similar effect might be at work in totalitarian regimes: people are addicted to the little games they have to play to get by and are not motivated to change the system. Something like a Stockholm syndrome on a larger scale. Just speculating here :)
In other words, loyalty and absolute submission to military leaders and the state was seen as a sign of egolessness and enlightenment.
some examples of bad writing?.
and why you think it's lunatic raving ?.
withought these my friend, you are just doing the same you are accusing zack of.
in short, be objective.
The media isn't some conspiratorial, Big Brother type industry out to make us all unhappy. The image the media provides is simply the one we most readily accept. The enemy is not the media, the enemy is us.
"They" want to make money, and the fast track is to exploit our psychological weaknesses. So they do it.
They are not out to make us unhappy, true. In fact, happy cows live longer and give better milk (allegorically spoken, not sure if that's true in real life). They just want us to seek happiness in things that benefit them.
"The Media" probably included all the small internet sites, too...
But that's not the point, the point is that we are susceptible to manipulation, and the media is doing it actively to shape us all into self-destructive consumers.
The media doesn't shape us, we shape the media with our attention. CNN doesn't derail their entire programming for a week every time a cute little white girl gets abducted because they have some sort of agenda. They do it because if they don't MSNBC will and we'll all watch that channel instead.
That's why I don't watch cable news. I'm more of an Economist kind of guy which is also media, though diametrically opposed to much of the media in philosphy.
Which is yet another reason the original argument is silly. All viewpoints do exist in the media. The media collectively IS doing it's job of putting out a wide variety of information and letting us choose, with our attention, which we want to see. Sadly more people choose Fox News than the Economist. This isn't the media's fault, it's ours.
In other words I accepted the correctness of Flow at a faith-based level rather than at an logic-based level.
In these two sentences, Flow now 'clicks' for me at that logical level: "So complete absorption leads to flow, that great feeling, because all your resources are dedicated to it: the task is precisely challenging enough to engage all of your resources, and nothing more. Since all of your resources are engaged in the task at hand, you no longer feel self-conscious because there’s no “bit” available to mull over your ego or self-image."
This post is not perfect and does contain a bit of speculative wandering, as others have pointed out, but for finally making the circuits of my brain comprehend Flow at a deeper level.. Thank You!
Don't stop writing.
These discussions almost always begin with a (unsubstantiated) assumption that material things are bad. That wanting material wealth is bad. It's the same sort of argument used against hedonists. That satisfaction is only temporary (which I would agree with), and therefore the pursuit of temporary satisfaction is futile and eventually leaves you unfulfilled (which I don't agree with). After all, the true hedonists I've known in my life rank as some of the happiest folks I've met.
My point is simple. There are a lot of ways to be happy and a lot of ways to be miserable. Standing in line for an iPhone may be one way that folks enjoy life. They just really like the phone.
*note: I did not wait in line for an iPhone.
Lying in the sun, having drinks, and occasionally venturing into the cold Atlantic (I grew up spening my summers on beaches against he Indian Ocean), for an entire day, was incredibly rejuvenating.
I wasn't thinking about tomorrow or yesterday. Lying on the beach (don't forget sunscreen) has one of the most relaxing effects, and the best is it lasts for one or two days afterwards.
So my suggestion would be, at least now that we have hot weather, go to the beach every weekend and soak up the sun, have a beer/vodka or two, and chill.
And it's very little else. The whole section on "flow" reads like an excuse-digression to distract from the real goal of the post.
Incidentally, I am writing this on a MacBook and have mostly great things to say about my experiences with Apple (except that they were too aggressive in trying to charge me $100+ for a new battery adapter when the cord of my old one started to wear).
Edited: Or to buying an iPhone.