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DesignedbyJessicaShatan
Library of CongressCataloging-in-Publication Data
Csikszentmihalyi,Mihaly.
Creativiry : flow and the psychology of discoveryand invention / Mihaly
Csikszentmihaiyi - 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical referencesand index.
ISBN 0-06-017133-2
1. Creative abiliry. 2. Creative thinking. I. Tide.
8F408.C77 1996
153.3'5-dc20
96-4716
96 97 98 99 00 +/HC 109 87 6 5 4 3 2 1
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FIV E
108
C l trl .,trtvtTY
enjoyable. Br-rt if one does these things a certain way, then they
become intrinsicaliy rewarding, rvorth doing for their own sake.
What is the secretof transfornting activitiesso that they are rewardins in and of thenrseives?
PnocnRuMED
FoR CRnarrvrrY
When people are asked to choose from a list the best description of
how they feel when doing whatever they enjoy doing rnost-readanswer most
ing, climbing moLrntains, playing chess, whatever-the
fr.qii5"tly chosen is "designing or discovering something new." At
first, it Seenls strange that dancers, rock climbers, and composers all
agree that their most enjoyable experiences resemble a process of disc o v c ry . Bu t w h e n w e rhi nk about i t some nl ore, i t seenrsperfectl y
reasonable that at least sorne people should enjoy discovering and
creating above all else.
To see the logic of this, try a simple thought experiment' Suppose
that you want to build an organism, an artificial iife form, that will
have the best charrce of surviving in a complex and unpredictable
environment, such as that on Earth. You want to buiid into this
organism sonte mechanism that will prepare it to confront as many of
the sudden dangers and to take advantage of as many of the opportunities that arise as possible. How rvouid you go about doing this?
Certainly you would want to design an organism that is basically
conservative, one that learns the best solutions from the past and
keeps repeating them, tryng to save eneriy, to be cautious and go
lvith the tried-and-true patterns of behavtor.
But the best solution u'ouid also inciude a reiay system in a ferv
organisms that would give a positive reinforcemellt every time they
discovered sourething new or canle tlp with a Irovel idea or behavior,
whether or IIOI it was imrncdiately useful. lt is <-speciallyrnrportant
to make sure that the organisnl was not rewarded oniy for useful discoveries, otherwise it would be severely handicapped in rneeting the
furure. For no earthly builder could anticipate the kind of sjtuations
the species of new organisms might encounter tomorrow next year,
or in the next decade. So the best program is one that makes the
organism feel good whenever something new is discovered, regardless of its present usefulness. And this is u'hat seems to have happened
with our race through evoiution.
THE
Fi.ow
()F
C l l \F .AT l v i l Y
i(i9
| 10
C l rrr:,r' rrvl rv
W'e are generaily torn between two opposite sets of instructions programmed into the brain: the least-efTort irnperative on one side, and
the claims of creativity on the other.
In most individuals entropy seems to be stronger, and they enjoy
comfort more than the challenge of discovery. A few, like the ones
who teli their stories in this book, are more responsive to the rewards
of discovery. But we ali respond to both of these rervards; the tendencies toward conserving energy as rn'ell as using it constructively
are simultaneously part of our inheritance. Which one wins depends
not only on our genetic makeup but also presun-Lablyon our early
experiences. Holr.ever, unless enough peopie are rnotivated by the
enjoyment that comes from confronting challenges, by discovering
new ways of, being and doing, there is no evolution of culture, no
progress in thought or feeling. It is important, therefore, to understand better what enjoyrnent consists of and how creativity can produce it.
Wn a r
Is E w ;o v u E N r?
it
often
involved
painful,
risky, diflicult
activities that
flow
' Iu r
F r -orv op
C R t,q f l vr.r\
:rnd poor, rnen and \,'onlen, Anrericans andJapancseseelrrto experience enjoyrnent in the same way, even though they nuy be doing
very different things to attain it. Nine rnain elements were nlentio'ed over and over again to describe horv it Gels when an experieuce is enjoyable.
1. Thereare cleargoalseuerystep o;fthe way. ln contrast to what hap_
pens in everyday iife, on the job or at hor'e, where often there are
contradictory demancls and our purpose is unsure, in flow we
always know rvhat needs to be do'e. The r'usiciarr k'ows what
notes to play next, the rock climber knows the next moves to
make. When a job is enjoyable, it also has clear goals: The surgeon
is aware how the incision should proceed rno'rent by r'oment; the
farnrer has a plan for how to carry out the planting.
2. 'trhereis immediatefeedbatk to .,e's acii.ns.Again, in contrast to
the usual state of at?rirs, in a flow experience rve know how well
we are doing. The musician hears right away whether tire note
played is the one. The rock clir'ber finds out i'rmecliately rvherher
the move was correct becausehe or she is still hanging i' there and
h a s rr' tl .rl l e nto th e b o ttorrr of rhe vrl l cy. The surgcon sers tl rerc i s
no blood in the caviry and the farrner seesthe iurrows linrng up
neatly in the field.
3. 'fhere is a balan.rebetweenchallenges
ttnd skills.l' f1ow, we teel that
our abilities are well matched to tire opportunities fbr actiori. In
everyday life we sor'etirnes Gel that the challengesare too high in
relation to our skiils, and rhen we feel frustrated and anxious. Or
feel that our potential is gr-eater than the opportunities to
"ve
expressit, and then we fbel bored. Piayirrg tennis or chessagainst a
rnuch better opponent leaclsto frustration, againsta nrucir weaker
opponent, tcl boredonr. Iir a really enjoyable llanle, the players are
balancedon the fine iine betwee' boredoi'arrcl anxiety. The sarrre
is true when r,vork, or a conversatioll, or a relationship is going
rveli.
1. Action.and awareness
are merged.It is typical of everyday experi_
ence that our nrinds are disjointed trorn what w.e do. Sitting in
class,studentsntay appearto be paying attention to the teacher,but
112
C tt E ,qrtvttY
T HE
F L ow
oF C l rE A Ttvrry
113
one with the tearn, the reader of a novel lives for a few hours in a
di{ferent reality. Paradoxically, the self expands through acrs of self*
' fbrgetflrltres"*;'
8. T'he senseof time becomesdistorted.Generally in flow we forget
tirne, and hours may passby in what seem like a few minutes. Or
the opposite happens: A figure skater may report that a quick turn
that in real time takes only a second seernsto stretch out for ten
times as long. In other words, clock tirne no longer marks equal
lengths of experienced time; our sense of how much time passes
dependson what we are doing.
'Whenever
9. The activity becomes
autotelic.
most of these conditions :ue
present, we begin to enjoy whatever it is that produces such an experience. I may be scared of using a cornputer and iearn to do it only
because rny job depends on it. But as my skills increase,and I recognize what the computer ailows me to do, i rnay begin to enjoy using
the computer for its own sake as weli. At this point the activity
becomes autotelic,which is Greek for something that is an end in itself. ',,
Some activities such as art, music, and sports are usually autotelii:
There is no reason for doing them except to Gel the experience they ;
provide. Most things in IiG are exotelic:We do them not because we
enjoy them but in order to get at some later goal. And sorne activiries
are both: The violinist gets paid for playing, and the surgeon gets status and good money for operating, as well as getting enjoyment ftom
doing what they do. In rnany ways, the secretto a happy iiG is to learn
to get flow from as rnany of the things we have ro do as possible. If
work and famrly lift become autotelic, then there is nothing wasted in
life, and everlthing we do is worth doing for its own sake.
TrrE ConrDrrroNs
Creativity involves the production of novelry. The process of discovery involved in creating something new appears to be one of the
most enjoyable activities any human can be involved in. In fact, it is
easy to recognize the conditions of flow in the accounts of our
respondents, as they describe horv it feels to do the sort of things
they do.
114
C l tl l al tvl i v
T ' HE F t.()w
or
C R .F.A Ti vl ry
115
don't have his." The ancients called that.voice the Muse. Or it can be
a vision, as it is for Robertson Davies:
You are ahvays writing, and yori're always fbntasizirrg. What I
fincl very much in my own rvork, thor:gh I clon't know if it applies
to the work of other peopie, is that an idea fi:r a novel seizesme
arrd will not let me go until I have given it careful considerarion.
And that is not to say that a complete story appears in my head,
but very often lvhat appearsis.r picttrre which sectrrssorrrehowsrgnificant and which must be considered. Now, a great many years
ago, I found that whenever I stopped thinking abour something in
particular, a picture kept comirig up in m,v head. It \,vasa picture of
a street, and I knew what street it rvas; it rvas the street on which I
was born in a srnall Ontario village. Ancl rhere were two boys playing in the snow, and one threw a snotvbaltrat the other.
Readers of Davies's oeuvre will recognize in this picture the opening scene af Filih Businesq the first volune of his famous Deptford
trilogy. In many ways, the writing of the book consisted in finding
out u,hat that irnage, charged with ernotion and nostalgia, portended. The goal \,vas to find out what were the consequences of
throwing that snowball. Probably if Davies had told hinxelf rationally
that this is what the book would be about he would have rhought it
a trivial goal, not worth all the time and effort. But fbrtunately the
goal presented itself as a vision, a rnysterious call that he felt impelled
to f,oilow Very ofien this is how the Muse conemunicates-through a
giass darkly, as it were. It is a splendid arrangement, for if the artisr
were not tricked by the mystery, he r:r she rnight never venture into
the unexplored territory.
Knowing
How
Games are designed so that we can keep score arrd knor.v how rvell
we are doing. Most jobs give some sort of information about performance: The salesman can add up daily saies,the assembly worker can
countpieces produced. If all else fails, the boss rnay tellyou how weil
you are doing. But the artist, the scientist, and the inventor are movIng on very diflerent timelines. How cio they know, day in and day
out, rvhether they are \.vasting their tim;
something?
or actlially accomplishing
116
C tr. l aTtvttY
Balancing
Challenges
T s r Fl ow ot C n e a.rrvtl v
1,17
oK.
To be able to cope with such problerns,the creativeperson has to
have a great nlany personaliry traits that are conducive to discovery
l lu
C nE A Ti vl l 'Y
of the
rrolpding the abiliry to internalize the rules
dOrnein.and,,the judgm.nt, of the {ield. Cotnmoner also gives a hint
ofinother skill that creative individuals develop: a personal approach,
an iirternal model that allows them to put the problem into a man-
T HE
F L Ow
L1,9
really think of what you arc going to write. You just scribble, the
equations lead the way, and what you are doing is sort of architectural. You have to have a design in view, in which you design a
chapter, or a proof of a theorem, as the case may be. Then you
have to put it together out of words or out of symbols as the case
rnay be, but if you don't have a clear architecture in mind then the
thing won't end up being any good. The trick is to start from both
ends and to meet in the middle, which is essentiallylike building a
bridge. That seems to me the way that I think, anyhow. So the
origirral design is somehow accidental and you don't know how it
comes into your head. It just sort of happens, maybe when you are
shaving or taking a walk, then you sit down and actually work
through and that is when the hard work is done. And that is very
largely a matter of putting pieces together, finding out what works
and what doesn't.
uses similar terms to descriL'e the almost autoruratic quality of the flow experience when writing, expressing the
fbeliug of merging action and awareness through the image of the
Barry Commoner
120
C R e,q'rl vttv
works
word pure.You know that this is right' I don't mean that it
intheworlcl,<lrthatitacldsup'butthatit,sriglrtinthisplace.In
this story.lt belongsto it. It's right for that person'that character'
Avoiding Distractions
to creativepersonsare reaiiyjust
Many of1n. peculiaritiesattribr-rtecl
may iose
ways to protect the focus of concentration so that they
flow, and it
themselvesin the creativeprocess.Distractions interrupt
to get on
needs
one
may take hours to recover the peace of rrrind
takes to
with the work. The more ambitious the task, the ionger it
scientist
A
lose oneself in it, and the easier it is to get distracted.
the "norworking on an arcaneproblem mLlst detach himself from
symrnal" worlcl anclroam with his mind in a world of, disembodied
the solid
bols that now you see,now you clon't' Any intrusion frorn
instant'
an
in
world of everydayrealiry can make that world disappear
when
It is for this reasonthat FreernanDyson "hides" in the librarv
a
winin
himself
he'swriting and why Marcel Proust used to seclude
A la
dowless room lined with cork rvhen he sat down to write
the
break
could
du tempsperdu. Even the siightest noise
recherche
thread of his teetering imagination'
the
More serioushealth, family, or financialproblemscould occupy
able to
mind of a person so insistently that he or she is no longer
may
of
drought
devote enor-rghattention to work. Then a long period
creative
follow a writeri block. a Lrtrrnout,which lllay even end a
about:
talks
career.It is this kind of distractionthat JacobRabinow
Freedom from worry is one thing-that you don't have any
probiem of iiealth or sicknessin the family or something that
occupiesyour mind. Or financialworries, that you're going crazy
abour horv you're going to pay the next biil. or children'srvorries,
or drugs or something.No, it''s nice to be free of responsibiliry'
That doesn'tmeanyou haveno responsibiliryto the project' but to
if
be free of other things.And you're not likely to be an inventor
you're very sick. You're too busy rvith your problems'too many
pains.
Many of our respondentswere thankful to their spousesfor prowas
viding a buffer from exacriy these kinds ,:f distractions.This
T HE
FLow
c)F C R E A TIvtTY
1'21
especially true of the men; the wornen sornetimes nentioned pointedly that they also would have liked to have had a wifb to spare them
from worries that interGred with their concentration on work.
Self, Time, and Surroundings
When distractions are out of the way and the other conditions for
flow are in place, the creative process acquires all the dimensions of
flow. Here it is described bv the poet Mark Strand:
Forgetting
'Well,
as Autotelic
Experience
T'his then brings us back to where we started this chapter and the
observation that all of the respondents placed the joy of n'orking
ahead of any extrinsic rewards they may receive fronr it. Like most of
the orhers, the psychologist Donald carupbell gives unanrbiguous
atlvice to youlll people entering the field:
I would say: "Don't go into scieilce if you are interested in
money. Don't go into science if you will rrot enjoy it even if you
122
(l t{uA Il vl TY
123
about successis not something about which I've ever been serious
about in any sensewh:Itever.
all of these people seem to have heeded their own
advice. None pursued Inoney and fame. Some becarne comfoftably
rvealthy fronr their inventions or their books, but none of them felt
fortunate because of it. What they felt fortunate about was that they
could get paicl for something they had such fun doing and that in the
certainly
bargain they could feel that what they did rnight help the human
conciition along. It is indeed lucky to be able to jr"rstify one's life
'woodward,
who
activity with rn,ords such as those of c. vann
explains why he writes historY:
It interests rne. lt is a source of satisfaction.Achieving sonlething
'without
such a consciousnessor
that one thinks is irnportant.
motivation ir seems to rne that life could be rather dull and purposeless,and I wouldn't want to attempt that kind of life. of cornplete leisure, say, of having absolutely nothing to do that one felt
was worth doing-that
be in.
i 2,+
(l l {L.A rl vl rY
':FLow
oF CoNSCIo{JsNEss
There are many things that people enioy: the pleasures of the body'
power and fbme, material possessions.Some enjoy collecting differor
ent b"t, t,ottles, and a feu' even enjoy causing pain to themselves
it Jre
to others. Strangelv enough, even though the means to obtain
the
nruch
.,veli-being
very
is
widely different, the resulting feeling of
same. Does that mean that all fcrrms of enjoyment ele equally worth
pursuing?
centuries ago, Plato wrote that the most irnportant
task for a sociefy was to teach the yoult!! to find pleasure in the right
objects. Now Plato was conservarive even for his times, so he had
rather definite ideas about what t|ose "right things" u''ere that young
people should learn to enjoy. we are much too sophisticated in this
age to have strong feelings in the matter. Yet we probably
d"y
"rrd
agree that we would feel better if our chiiclren learned to enjoy
cooperation rather than violence; reading rather than stealin$; chess
rather than ciice; hiking rather than watching television. In other
Twenry-five
T HE
FLow
oF C R E A TIvI'l -Y
125
still have priorities. And rve do want the next generatioll to share
those priorities. Finally,many of us suspectthat the next generation
will not preservewhat we value unless they now enjoy it to some
extent.
Tlre problem is that ir is easierto {ind pleasurein things th?'t are
easier,in activitieslike sex and violence that are aireadyprogranuned
into our genes.Hunting, fishing, eating, and mating have privileged
placesin our nervous system.It is also easyto enjoy making nloney'
or discoveringnew lands, or conquering new territories, or building
elaboratepalaces,tentples,or tonrbsbecausetheseprojectsare itr sytrchrony with survival strategiesestablishedlong ago in our physiological makeup. It is rnuch more ditncult to iearn to enjoy doing things
that were discovered recently in our evoiution, like manipulating
symbolic systenlsby doing math or sciencc or wrlting poetry or
music, and learning from doing these thirtgs about the world and
about ourselves.
children grow rlp believing that footbail playersand rock singers
,ruust be h.ppy and envy tire stars of the entertainment world for
what they think must be fabulous, fulfilling iives. Asked what they
would like to do when they grow up, nlost of them would chooseto
be athletesand entertarners.They don't realizeuntil tnuch later, if at
all, that the glarnour of those lives is vuigar tinsel, that to be like
them leadsanywhere but to happiness'
Neither parents nor schools are very effective at teaching the
young to find pleasurern the right things' Adults, themselvesoften
deluded by infatuation with fatuous models, conspire in the
cleception. They rnake serious tasks seem dull and hard' and
frivolous ones exciting and easy.Schools generally fail to teach
how exci_ting,how mesmerizingly beautiful scieirceor nlathen-Iatics can be; they teach the routine of literature or history rat[er
than the adventure.
It is in this sense thar creative individuals live exemplary lives'
is.
ht.y show how joypul and interestingcomplex synrbolicactiviry
:They have struggled through marshes of ignorance, desertsof disinwith the help of parentsand a few visionary teachersthey
,-terest,
"have and
found themselveson the other side of the known. T'hey have
becomepioneersof culture,rnodelsfor what melt atrdwolnen of the
future *ill b.-if there is to be a future at all. It is by follorving their
will grorv beyond the litrritrtions
example that hurnan consciousness
(l l {E A rrV l rY
of the past, the progranls that gerreslicl ci.riturcshave rvirecl into our
brains. Ilerhaps our children, or their chiltiren, will feel ntore joy in
rvriting poetry and solving theorenrs th:rn in being passiveiy entertained. The irves of these creative rndividuals reassurcus that it is not
irr-Lpossible.