While Chapter 5 of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow focuses on the body’s impact on optimal experience, in Chapter 6 we move upstairs. Chapter 6, titled The Flow of Thought, focuses on the mind’s contribution. The author points out that most of us have little control over our minds. We are attracted to what is seemingly most important at the moment. We fill the gaps with stimuli that don’t evoke flow or optimal experiences. What is the first thing you do when you have any “break” in stimuli? If you are like me, you grab your smartphone and zone out on bright and shiny things. This chapter has given me pause to think…without the phone but my inner Gollum keeps saying it is my precious.
The most important concept that has stuck with me as I read this chapter is the need for a disciplined, systemic approach to ordering the mind. Csikszentmihalyi makes the case in the chapter that if you can not order your mind achieving flow is difficult if not impossible. Ordering requires frameworks and context.
Over the years I have spent significant amounts of time as a trainer. Over the years the idea of asking learners to participate in rote learning exercises has become a non-starter. This chapter suggests that rote memorization is an important step in creating a framework for thinking and the memories (context) needed for learning complex patterns of information. Access to complex patterns of information is how we make sense of broader patterns and make intuitive jumps – all part of optimal experience and flow. The structure provides a scaffolding for memory. “Without systems for ordering information, even the clearest memory will find consciousness in chaos.”
The Flow of Thought makes a strong argument for learning how to think and then practicing the skill. Practice can be found in reading challenging material, writing poetry or essays just to name a few mental activities. Ordering your thinking provides a discipline that makes optimal experiences and flow possible. With practice “there comes a point where a person is ready to pass from the status of passive consumer to that of active producer. That is where flow and optimal experiences occur.” Without disciplined thought that transition can only be a random event.
Buy a copy and read along – https://amzn.to/4b5kPmb
Week 1: Preface and Logistics – https://bit.ly/3WLjFHU
Week 2: Happiness – https://bit.ly/4dUSpNg
Week 3: Consciousness – https://bit.ly/4bEu3pN
Week 4: Enjoyment and The Quality of Life – https://bit.ly/4eeknDQ
Week 5: The Conditions Of Flow
Week 6: The Body In Flow
