Last week, I wrote about flow, what it is, and how I began to pursue inviting more of the feeling into my life in 2020. While in M. Csikszentmihalyi’s conceptual framework the basic descriptive outline of what flow is is fairly simple, it is only the starting point. Once we understand what flow is and where it can be found, “Dr. C” prompts us to consider the purpose of flow in life: the provision of enjoyable experiences.
Importantly, these enjoyable experiences—i.e., flow activities—are intrinsically motivated, or what Csikszentmihalyi calls autotelic (auto = self, telos = end goal). This means that practical activities that can generate flow are, in and of themselves, their own reward. They are done because they are enjoyable, and there need not necessarily be larger purpose. The objective in feeling more flow—understood as practicing ordering of consciousness—then, is to develop an autotelic personality. That is, to create a self that is motivated by its own goals, and which easily converts psychic entropy—disordered consciousness—into flow by mastering a set of practices. Herein lies the liberatory potential of this idea: these practices can be undertaken regardless of circumstances, stresses, and adversities.
The autotelic self is one that finds a way to enjoy living, no matter the circumstances. The ultimate result of cultivating an autotelic self is increased complexity in consciousness and achievement, driven by the process of seeking out and discovering new potentialities. Practically speaking, the autotelic self, insofar as it is intrinsically motivated to pursue flow in action, undisturbed by external threats, focused on observing and analyzing surroundings, naturally finds new opportunities for action. When adversity threatens to paralyze, the person who is adept at achieving flow will find new ways to invest their most important psychic resource: attention.
To gain control over the quality of experience, one must build the pursuit of enjoyable experiences into the day to day. The reward of this engaging in this practice is that the person who is in control of their consciousness can focus their attention at will, ignore distractions, and concentrate as long as it takes to achieve a goal or an aim of any kind. From this, a person derives a feeling that goes beyond the fleeting satisfaction of a need or desire, but rather the lasting enjoyment that is marked by forward movement, novelty, and accomplishment.
The broadest implication of all of this is the autotelic self, by generating flow and enjoyment in the course of undertaking practical activities, is the creative engine that drives the evolution of culture, of ever greater complexity in consciousness and human accomplishment. For Csikszentmihalyi, then, the most important human task is to transform the entirety of life into a single integrated flow activity.