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I want to start with what you already
know about flow, and show you a contrast @F-L-O-W.
Here is the information from
wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow psychology:
Flow is the mental state of operation in
which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling
of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the
process of the activity. Proposed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,
the positive psychology concept has been widely referenced
across a variety of fields.
According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow is
completely focused motivation. It is a single-minded immersion
and represents perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions
in the service of performing and learning. In flow, the
emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive,
energized, and aligned with the task at hand. To be caught in
the ennui of depression or the agitation of anxiety is to be
barred from flow. The hallmark of flow is a feeling of
spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task
although flow is also described (below) as a deep focus on
nothing but the activity – not even oneself or one’s emotions.
Buzz terms for this or similar mental
states include: to be in the moment, present, in the zone, on
a roll, wired in, in the groove, on fire, in tune, centered,
or singularly focused.
Here are some selected quotes, contributed by Alicia
Parr:
“But as human beings, we are
more than just alive. We are seekers and strivers. We too need
to flow. So we develop human flow systems—economies,
societies, and communities. And in a way these also live and
die. It turns out that flow—quite literally—is the essence of
life.”
“If we’re always on that quest, fulfillment
has to be found on the way, too. We’re not just flowing toward
something, but we’re also always in the process of
flowing—that is, becoming, doing, and being.”
“So what’s the first step on our quest? I can’t resist one
more quote from Csikszentmihalyi." -Alicia Parr
To know oneself is the first step toward
making flow a part of one’s entire life. But just as there is
no free lunch in the material economy, nothing comes free in
the psychic one. If one is not willing to invest psychic
energy in the internal reality of consciousness, and instead
squanders it in chasing external rewards, one loses mastery of
one’s life, and ends up becoming a puppet of circumstances.
This is how we can participate in the
creation of something larger than ourselves, the realization
of which may occur in the future. This is how we find
happiness in that great flowering of our existence.
With an understanding of flow—both in the
sense of the world around us and in the sense of the self
right now—we will come to see that freedom and flow are
two branches of the same beautiful tree.”
Read more:
http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/freedom-and-flow#ixzz2RfE5CtCO
Flow @F-L-O-W
I am careful to differentiate flow from
@F-L-O-W. As stated, @F-L-O-W represents an acronym for
Flawless Living Operating Worldview, as contrasted with Blank
Slate, or BS Worldview, currently in vogue. @F-L-O-W as a
manifesto, is located at
www.f-l-o-w.com/manifesto, but succinctly means that this
worldview counters the BS view, that we can be anything we can
be, anyone can learn and apply anything, that we are all
equal, that life is fair, and that we are rational human
beings, doings, havings, and becomings. While there are many
other contrasts, see www.f-l-o-w.com/BScontrast for more,
suffice it to say that @F-L-O-W is counter-intuitive, where BS
is intuitive, a clear advantage which will be difficult to
overcome.
Basically, @F-L-O-W we are
able to use flow states and levels to create a path, however
this path can not be described by flow. While flow can be a
goal @F-L-O-W it is a much broader scope and involved the
counter-intuitive notions, such as a contrast with this
statement from the above quote:
“To be caught in the ennui of depression
or the agitation of anxiety is to be barred from flow.”
I do not believe this is the case,
because it fails to recognize that negative states can
actually be @F-L-O-W. Barring negative states such as anxiety
and depression leaves off the negative loops that are required
for equilibration in some human beings, and while negative
consequences can emerge, the overall effect can produce
well-being in ways that we least expect. While flow is often a
positive loop (get more of what you are getting), providing
increasing returns, so are anxiety, panic and depression.
Negative loops (get less of what you got), or balancing
conditions are often required for balancing the psychological
environment. Note: not being a
psychologist, I take liberties perhaps not earned, fyi…yet
these system effects are critical to understand the network
@F-L-O-W and why it is different than flow.
Unlike BS, @F-L-O-W uses power-law
distribution found in network effects, more than
bell-curve distribution found in most statistics. The bell
curve method can distort the equilibration that is present and
available to us all, at ranges far from the “normal”
personality. Again, we are perfect, just creative evolution’s
way of gaining increased levels of fitness over time. Yet
because of the natural misalignments emerging from diverse
existential conditions—the original idea of evolution toward
fitness, we are confused by a worldview designed to constitute
us as broken, therefore beating, cajoling, fire-walking,
tricking us into submission to the success equals happiness
formula which requires that we all change to fit the “success
requirements.” And along the way, a subtle bit
of manipulation shifting us irrationally from needing to
wanting.
Trust me on one thing, look around, the
1% who are naturally aligned with wealth-rule sets, use OPM,
OPT, OPKSEs, OPE, and so on, meaning other’s people’s MITEAM
(money, information, time, energy, attention and
motivation)—they are not changing for anyone, they GET IT, why
change when you can fill the gap with OPMITEAM? Silly thought
to them, and the rest of us conditioned to labor in the
success = happiness equation, that seems intuitive, yet, keeps
our nose’s on the grindstone, change in the air and our
attention on everything but who we are.
Counter-intuitive @F-L-O-W
It says we are already perfect, and that
while in that perfection we will achieve states of flow left
to our own devices, both positive and negative reinforcing
states, enduring positive and negative consequences as a
natural emergence. BS has us busy using their devices and flow
is often rare, often indirect and almost certainly in limbo,
and not connected to a natural path, but one “manufactured by
the powers at be. We want to generate flow states and levels
and even a path @F-L-O-W , and we will not leave any of our
talents behind, because if we do, we give up happiness in the
process.
Happiness and flow are not the same thing
@F-L-O-W .
This is often difficult to grok at first,
because happiness is an array of things, some of which don’t
fit the feel-good happiness of BS. Someone is in flow, or
happy jumping on a grenade to save friends? Not in the
traditional BS definition, @F-L-O-W? YES…albeit the ultimate
act. Now, I’m not suggesting you go round jumping on grenades,
but to illustrate the point, what might seem like pain can
also be @F-L-O-W and this clearly differentiates flow
@F-L-O-W, for the record. To the extent we notice where pain
is likely to be generated, understanding that we are not
always feel-good, positive emoting and in flow states or
levels, is central to maintaining the path @F-L-O-W.
I know it’s laborious to distinguish them
by using the “dashes.” However, it’s a reminder that
happiness, success and the tensions of alignment are all
punctuated, spaced in time through maturation of
development, and that it’s a journey filled with ALL of our
emotions, and in seasons of life.
Deliberative Practice @F-L-O-W
There are arguments and debate about flow
and deliberative practice, that one is superior to the other.
About deliberative practice from:
wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice learning method
“Practice is the act of rehearsing a
behavior over and over, or engaging in an activity again and
again, for the purpose of improving or mastering it, as in the
phrase "practice makes perfect". Sports teams practice to
prepare for actual games. Playing a musical instrument well
takes a lot of practice. It is a method of learning and of
acquiring experience. The word derives from the Greek
"πρακτική" (praktike), feminine of "πρακτικός" (praktikos),
"fit for or concerned with action, practical"[1] and that from
the verb "πράσσω" (prasso),"to achieve, bring about, effect,
accomplish".[2] In American English practice is used as both a
noun and a verb, but in British English there is a distinction
between practice, used as a noun, and practise, used as a verb
(see spelling differences). Sessions scheduled for the purpose
of rehearsing and performance improvement are called
practices. They are engaged in by sports teams, bands,
individuals, etc. "He went to football practice everyday after
school," for example.” –
There are criticisms of flow that pertain
to the ideas @F-L-O-W. While I could say @F-L-O-W subsumes
both flow and deliberative practice, it would seem arrogant,
although remaining logical, but counter-intuitive when you
understand that you are going to get better with “repetition”
and in large part (being an athlete for a long time, at a high
level in my life)…we move along the chain from unconsciously
incompetent, consciously incompetent, to conscious competence,
to unconscious competence, a simple process that describes why
practice is required. Deliberative practice is BS, because it
assumes that if I deliberatively practice that I can master
anything, but why would you? Again, it is the success
requirements driving our behavior, not happiness.
Now, for those dismayed at the notion and
try to toss out the baby with the bathwater, let me say this:
anything that is deeply motivating to you will receive
deliberation and of course we develop fastest and best around
those areas; learning deep and profound in areas where free
energy is generated—duh.
Not to be disrespectful, but the
important thing to remember, is that if all behavior can be
traced back to intrinsic motivation, even the motivation to
deliberately practice as an end to and of itself, then what we
do more, approaches mastery. The key is this: are you doing it
for success or happiness, or the tension in between. @F-L-O-W,
noticing why is going to enable a path of flow to emerge, with
flow states and levels.
This notion of free energy is ignored in
the areas where deliberative practice is spoken about,
championed by the recent quote in BLINK, by Malcom Gladwell,
which I heard in the 80s from Brian Tracy, that 10,000 hours
of practice equals mastery.
Free energy @F-L-O-W is an idea which I
believe to be true and helpful. When we are in flow states,
even when those flow states are negative, and not just
positive, we generate free energy, because the tasks are
second nature, and easy, because the capability, or “motional”
energy available is not used up and it disperses, so we
actually get entropy in those flow states, believe it or not!
Who would have thunk it, right? My contention and liberal use
of the second law of thermodynamics is that this free energy
is available, even as it’s dispersed, to be “uphilled” into
things like deliberative practice. Using flow, in fact,
I will hypothesis this from my own experience, you verify it
with your experience: we are in flow states and levels when we
reach unconscious competence, regardless of how we got there,
and in most cases entropy, as well as free energy is being
dissipated.
Reaching flow is a phase shift
opportunity @F-L-O-W, not that a phase shift happens every
time you are in flow states or levels, but achieving the path
@F-L-O-W, then reorganizes the system to seek beyond mastery.
In other words, reaching one level of mastery, permits the
reorganization of our system into another phase, “punctuated”
by, in, and over time by a maturational dance of development.
I caution you about deliberate practice
and how it’s applied. @F-L-O-W `we create flow-generated
happiness, even when it’s not always positive, and therefore
giving up happiness for success, which is deliberate practice
generating, if NOT in an area intrinsically motivating, may be
a mistake.
The point?
Make sure to find, design and use
@F-L-O-W before applying loads of deliberative practice, or
you won’t escape the BS notions that condition you to exchange
happiness for success—wants for needs. The remainder of the
book is an expose on the figure and ground shift between the
elements @F-L-O-W and the contrast with BS.
I hope you give @F-L-O-W an opportunity
to show and demonstrate that allowing @F-L-O-W into your life,
work and relationships has a reward far greater than the time
you invest here.
DISCLAIMER: My work @F-L-O-W is based on
my own experience, research, current events, interviews, and
what I’ve learned as a coach, consultant, and mentor over the
course of my career. It may and probably does contain errors
and you shouldn’t make any decision based solely on what you
read here. It’s your money and your responsibility. I make no
attempt at providing professional advice to be used in the
course of making life, work, or relationship decisions. I am
not a psychologist, financial professional, nor do I earn any
fees by advising people in any professional medium, or
discipline. I do my best to provide you with my insights that
I have gathered over time by living and traveling
internationally and working with people around the globe to
understand meaning making, how to make sense out of what I
see, read and experience for your use in your own meaning
making. Under no circumstances do I take any responsibility,
nor have any accountability for the decision you might make as
a result of my insights and my written, spoken, or video
material, online or otherwise. For more info @F-L-O-W, visit
www.f-l-o-w.com.
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