Great talk from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (yeah…I had to just copy and paste this one), the man who invented the concept of flow.
Some brief notes and two useful screenshots for y’all:
- ecstasy is an alternative reality
- when we view monuments of the past (Chinese temples, Greek stadiums and theaters), we are really viewing places designed to elicit ecstasy (eg, you go to a sports stadium to feel moments of ecstasy and bliss)
- the nervous system can’t process more than 120 bits at a time, which is why we can only process 2 people talking to us; when in flow, so many of those bits-slots are focused on the act that you literally cease to exist — you stop feeling hungry or tired, you stop paying attention to what’s around you (I bet some people get like that just playing Flappy Birds, though)
(flow comes when you are skilled at doing something, and are challenged by your current task; not enough skill and you feel anxious; not enough challenge and you feel bored)
(despite society’s increasing income levels, self-reported happiness has stayed constant; this may be due, in part, to the relativity of happiness — if everyone’s income is higher, my relative income hasn’t changed)