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Experience Flow

How can we bring into being a world in which most people spent most of their time happily engaged in productive activity, experiencing joy in their productive activities, so that they are engaged in a permanently virtuous circle of greater joy, expertise and excellence leading to greater contribution to society?

Links

1. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, an interview titled “Flow with Soul” in What  is Enlightenment? magazine. The author of , discusses how he discovered it, what it’s shortcomings are, and other issues.
2. Rob Jellinghaus, “Flow:  What’s Worth Living For?” A personal statement on flow with a long quotation from Csikszentmihalyi and a statement on “Flow and Society.”
3. A brief summary of Martin Seligman’s Learned Optimism. Optimism inoculates against depression, improves health, combines with talent and desire to enable achievement,  and, most importantly, can be learned.
4. Think Arete. “The classic Greek philosophers had a word for the process of self-actualizing and striving to reach your highest potential. They called it 'Areté.'”
5. James Neill’s links on “Psychology of Human Growth and Transpersonal Education.” A variety of different links including classic humanism, contemporary psychology, and an introduction to some frontiers.
6. Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott, and other Trancendentalists were in many respects early FLOW-ers - people who were passionate about exploring themselves and the world, and making the world a better place, by means of voluntary initiatives.

Books

1. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, .“Being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost.”
2. Martin Seligman, ."I believe that traditional wisdom is incomplete. A composer can have all the talent of Mozart and a passionate desire to succeed, but if he believes he cannot compose music, he will come to nothing. . . . Success requires persistence, the ability to not give up in the face of failure. I believe that optimistic explanatory style is the key to persistence."
3. Napolean Hill, . Despite the title, this is really about how to develop a vision and make it into a reality.  A classic from a more innocent age, everything he says may be used to help you manifest your dreams of whatever sort.

There are many thousands of valuable books on personal and spiritual growth.  Please explore whatever direction or tradition appeals to you.

Downloads

In addition to the material above, we encourage you to download the materials below from Michael Strong’s forthcoming book The Creation of Conscious Culture Through Educational Innovation.  As important as it is for us adults to experience a more positive, productive, effective, and happy life, it is even more important to create a world in which more and more young people develop positive lives.  FLOW would like to see many thousands of educational entrepreneurs creating newer, better schools that disseminate greater human flourishing.  What can you do to help make this happen?

• The Creation of Conscious Culture Through Educational Innovation

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