drose's Full Review: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - Flow: The Psychology of ...
Ever since I heard about the concept of "flow," I was interested in learning more about it. The term "flow," coined by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the mid-1970s, refers to "the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter." So when I found Csikszentmihalyi's book "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" in my local library, I snapped it up. Unfortunately, the book does not live up to the concept.
Csikszentmihaly originally studied artists, athletes, musicians, chess masters, and surgeons, and found that all of them had this common "flow" experience (the so-called "runner's high" is one example). In later years he found that regular people in regular jobs also experienced flow at times. In the first few chapters of the book, he describes different manifestations of flow and tells relates how people in all different situations have experienced it.
But things start to go downhill after that. For one thing, he seems to gradually loosen the definition of flow to cover just about any general feeling of happiness or well-being. By the middle chapters, I started to feel like I was reading one of those generic self-help books, rather than a popular account of a scientific discovery. For another, while the author may be an expert on flow, he's no expert on everything else. As the book goes on, he starts injecting his opinions on philosophy, religion, evolution, and all sorts of other topics about how to have a happy and meaningful life. He states these opinions as fact, without distinguishing them from the results of his scientific research. He even gets some factual details wrong, especially when he makes references to popular culture. For example, in one note he refers to the fantasy author "R.R. Tolkien."
By the end of the book, it was all I could do to slog through the last couple of chapters. I think if I really want to learn about flow, I'll have to find some of the author's old scientific papers.
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