A few years ago, I read the book Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.
In that book, the author argues that much of our disordered thinking is due to a lack of meaning. When we cannot create or define our own life-meaning, entropy and dissatisfaction results.
His answer for curing disorders of meaning involved psychotherapy. This isn’t a bad thing; after all, he was a psychiatrist. He has relatively little to say about the day-to-day creation of meaning outside of the psychiatrist’s couch.
The book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has quite a bit to say on that. It provides a blueprint for the creation of life-meaning, not by starting with meaning but by building meaning from the ground up, from everyday experiences.
I first read about this book in business literature, mainly around the idea that we have too many interruptions in our lives. Interruptions prevent us from going into a state of flow, flow being a satisfying state of concentrated work and sustained attention. This is bad and creates bad day-to-day experiences.
I tended to agree with these critiques; it is hard to feel satisfied in your work when you are constantly being pinged by technology, and the state of concentration that I feel when I can really dig into work is enjoyable.
I was surprised to find, however, that very little of this book is about work. Csikszentmihalyi devotes only a single chapter to it. This book takes a holistic approach, covering all aspects of life in relation to the flow-state and its cultivation.
I found myself taking notes every page or two, sometimes multiple times a page, because I was trying to chew on all the insights this book presents. It is one of those books that, as soon as you finish it, you want to pick it back up and start reading it again.
For example, in the chapter about work, he has a really interesting insight: people seem to like work more than they like leisure, but want more leisure than they do work. He posits that people do not know how to find challenging leisure that encourages them to reach for new powers and skills.
I love this idea. It speaks true to me. At work, you have set goals, deadlines you have to meet (one of which I am running towards as I type these words). Leisure takes much more time and effort to order, because we have little training on how to use leisure well. Oftentimes we race through our days and come home burnt out, with only enough energy for a blinking screen.
The problem with this is that our common leisure activities—television, social media, web-induced rabbit holes—do not rejuvenate us because they don’t offer enough of a challenge. They keep our attention but don’t increase in complexity and allow us to master new skills. In fact, much of our leisure is spent on apps that companies try to keep as frictionless as possible. We would be better off doing other things that offer us increasing complexity, the friction necessary for personal growth, like baking, puzzles, gardening, or the librarian’s personal favorite, reading.
This book was published in 1990, and there are a few dated aspects, but it has aged remarkably well. I would submit that the author’s concepts of flow and meaning are more important now than when the book was written.
Everywhere you look, our modern lives are set up almost in direct opposition to flow. We even have technologies that encourage a flow state but specifically deny increased complexity and challenge. Reading this book made me think of now-ubiquitous digital gambling, which is governed purely by chance, is limited by the amount of money you have, and will promotes addiction because of its encouragement of the flow-state.
(If you’re looking for a book on digital gambling that illustrates this principle to a terrifying degree, I cannot recommend enough the book Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas by Natasha Dow Schüll.)
Reading Csikszentmihalyi’s book, there is little wonder that so many people quote it and think about it. I don’t think a book can make you happy, anymore than a good meal or a good friend can. But this book can definitely take you somewhere.
I’d suggest actually reading Frankl and then delving into Flow. Frankl does a great job of explaining the core idea that we are people searching for meaning; Csikszentmihalyi does an excellent job of taking that core idea and getting a person to think about how they can make it real in their day-to-day lives. Once I saw that connection both books clicked a bit better for me.
I know that’s more reading for you. But again, according to Csikszentmihalyi himself, if you want to experience flow, reading is one of the best ways to get it.
And what kind of librarian would I be if I argued with that idea?
