Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention

by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi

as they moved along in time, being bombarded by external events, encountering good people and bad, good breaks and bad, they had to make do with whatever came to hand. Instead of being shaped by events, they shaped events to suit their purposes.

a creative life is still determined, but what determines it is a will moving across time—the fierce determination to succeed, to make sense of the world, to use whatever means to unravel some of the mysteries of the universe. If the parents are loving and stimulating, great, that is just what a son or daughter needs to build the future. If the parents die, this is terrible, but what can a young child do? Lick the wounds and make the best of it.

Curiosity and drive are in many ways the yin and the yang that need to be combined in order to achieve something new. The first requires openness to outside stimuli, the second inner focus. The first is playful, the second serious; the first deals with objects and ideas for their own sake, the second is competitive and achievement oriented. Both are required for creativity to become actualized.

Entering a career requires a great deal of determination and a good dose of luck. In fact, the majority of the people we interviewed mentioned luck most frequently as the reason they had been successful. Being in the right place at the right time and meeting the right people are almost necessary to take off within a field.

It is not surprising that so many promising artists give up and take refuge in teaching, rehabbing old houses, and designing for industry rather than flounder forever in the uncharted seas of so vague a profession. Those who persevere and succeed must be creative not only in their manipulation of symbols but perhaps even more in shaping a future for themselves, a career that will enable them to survive while continuing to explore the strange universe in which they live.

According to Erik Erikson, the last psychological stage that people confront in their lives is what he called the task of achieving integrity. What he meant by this is that if we live long enough and if we resolve all the earlier tasks of adulthood—such as developing a viable identity, a close and satisfying intimacy, and if we succeed in passing on our genes and our values through generativity—then

there is a last remaining task that is essential for our full development as a human being. This consists in bringing together into a meaningful story our past and present, and in reconciling ourselves with the approaching end of life. If in the later years we look back with puzzlement and regret, unable to accept the choices we have made and wishing for another chance, despair is the likely outcome. In Erikson’s words: “A meaningful old age…serves the need for that integrated heritage which gives indispensable perspective on the life cycle. Strength here takes the form of that detached yet active concern with life bounded with death, which we call wisdom…”

The notion of integrity connotes the ability to tie together, to relate to others outside oneself. Erikson thought that the perspective of an older person is based on a new definition of identity, which could be summarized in the sentence “I am what survives me.” If toward...

despair is likely to take over. But if I have identified with some more enduring entities, my survival will provide a sense of connection, of continuity, that keeps despair at bay. If I love my grandchildren, or the work I have accomplished, or the causes I have championed, then I am bound to feel a part of the futur...

Television commercials give such a strange view of what life is supposed to be. And a lot of people buy it. Life is not easy and comfortable, with nothing ever going wrong as long as you buy the right product. It’s not true that if you have the right insurance everything is going to be fine. That’s not what it’s really like. Terrible things happen. And those are the things that we learn from. People are incredibly complex. I read a book last winter called Owning Your Own Shadow, by Robert Johnson. And one of his theories is that the brighter the light, the darker the shadow. Which is often true.

his later attempts to assemble men and women from very different domains at his center were also directed at making the invisible visible through conversations that would bring out new ideas that could not arise in the minds of the single individuals but might emerge as a result of the interaction. This is how he described this latter form of creativity: I find that that kind of creativity is very interesting and very exciting—when this is done interactively between two sets of minds. I can see this done in the form of a collective mind, by a group of individuals whose minds are open and creative and are able to bring forth even more interesting and more complex results. All of which leads me to the idea that we can guide this process—this is in fact part of the process of evolution, and ideas that emerge in this way are equivalent to genes that emerge in the course of time. I see that ideas are to metabiological evolution what genes are to biological evolution.

Any dialogue, such as we’re having now, is of that nature. There is a tendency to draw each other out, to bring out the best or the most creative aspect of the mind, or the functioning of the mind. In this kind of interaction each person helps the others see what they see. That’s what is needed in the world today to reconcile differences, resolve conflicts, help us each understand what our belief systems represent, how to reconcile belief and knowledge.

I love this kind of harmony. One thing I always want to be is that person who facilitates rather than responds or interjects. That is difficult for me - I get excited and impassioned and interject. But my ideal, the type of person I respect, is someone who can bring minds together and help them meld around some great idea or purpose.

reductionism,

Do all domains end up being reductivist? Academia as “the emperor’s new clothes?”

holism

Should all domains be holistic, or strive for this goal? Salkist? That brining together and interconnecting? The classic liberal arts education cum everything ? I’m not sure I’m using that word right

in the last few millennia evolution has been transformed from being almost exclusively a matter of mutations in the chemistry of genes to being more and more a matter of changes in memes—in the information that we learn and in turn transmit to others. If the right memes are selected, we survive; otherwise we do not. And those who select the knowledge, the values, the behaviors that will either lead into a brighter future or to extinction are no longer factors outside ourselves, such as predators or climatic changes. The future is in our hands; the culture we create will determine our fate.

I think this is becoming more and more true. The reason for studying creativity and why it’s so vital

Survival no longer depends on biological equipment alone but on the social and cultural tools we choose to use.

the main threats to our survival as a species, the very problems we hope creativity will solve, were brought about by yesterday’s creative solutions.

Every new meme—the car, the computer, the contraceptive pill, patriotism or multiculturalism—changes the way we think and act, and has a potentially dark side that often reveals itself only when it is too late, after we have resigned ourselves that the innovation is here to stay.

Social media

The power to create has always been linked with the power to destroy.

The greatest art, East or West, was not produced when the artists set the agenda, but when patrons insisted on certain standards that benefited them. Patrons wanted primarily to be admired by the public, so the art they demanded had to appeal to and impress the entire community. In this sense, medieval and Renaissance art, commissioned by popes and princes, was in reality more democratic than it has become since the art world gained the power to separate itself from the rest of society—as a field with its own peculiar tastes and criteria of selection.

I’d like the definition of “greatest”. That’s a highly subjective word.

Currently research grants are evaluated in terms of either the priorities set by the field or the political agenda of the administration disbursing the funds. Perhaps it could be possible to establish a sort of civil service above party politics and disciplinary fashions, composed of those who aspire to be “good ancestors,” as Jonas Salk called them, and who would be willing to represent the claims of evolution when assessing whether scientific advances should receive social support.

Not in this political environment

trying to save by cutting opportunities for learning is one of the most benighted solutions a society can adopt. Perhaps only Jonathan Swift’s solution to the Irish famine is more objectionable.

Having high expectations is not a comfortable thing. Asian youth in the United States have internalized very high academic goals from their culture, and consequently have relatively low self-esteem, because it is so difficult for them to live up to expectations. Young African-Americans generally have lower academic goals, and hence their self-esteem tends to be higher.

Is this true? Or a stereotype?

a pat on the back does wonders for creative productivity, and apparently not without cause.

In my view of the situation, if the systems model of creativity is accurate, then it follows that creativity can be enhanced just as much by changing the field—by making it more sensitive and supportive of new ideas—as by producing a greater number of creative individuals. Better training, higher expectations, more accurate recognition, a greater availability of opportunities, and stronger rewards are among the conditions that facilitate the production and the assimilation of potentially useful new ideas.

obscurantism

However, there are four major sets of obstacles that prevent many from expressing this potential. Some of us are exhausted by too many demands, and so have trouble getting hold of and activating our psychic energy in the first place. Or we get easily distracted and have trouble learning how to protect and channel whatever energy we have. The next problem is laziness, or lacking discipline for controlling the flow of energy. And finally, the last obstacle is not knowing what to do with the energy one has.

With age most of us lose the sense of wonder, the feeling of awe in confronting the majesty and variety of the world. Yet without awe life becomes routine. Creative individuals are childlike in that their curiosity remains fresh even at ninety years of age; they delight in the strange and the unknown. And because there is no end to the unknown, their delight also is endless.

Try to be surprised by something every day.

Try to surprise at least one person every day.

Write down each day what surprised you and how you surprised others.

One of the surest ways to enrich life is to make experiences less fleeting, so that the most memorable, interesting, and important events are not lost forever a few hours after they occurred.

When something strikes a spark of interest, follow

Wake up in the morning with a specific goal to look forward to.

If you do anything well, it becomes enjoyable.

To keep enjoying something, you need to increase its complexity.

erect barriers against distractions, dig channels so that energy can flow more freely, find ways to escape outside temptations and interruptions. If we do not, entropy is sure to break down the concentration that the pursuit of an interest requires. Then thought returns to its baseline state—the vague, unfocused, constantly distracted condition of the normal mind.

What can you do to build up habits that will make it possible to control attention so that it can be open and receptive, or focused and directed, depending on what your overall goals require?

Take charge of your schedule.

Make time for reflection and relaxation.

Many people, especially those who are successful and responsible, take the image of the “rat race” seriously and feel uncomfortable, even anxious, if they are not busily at work. Even at home, they feel they must be always cleaning, working in the yard, or fixing things. Keeping constantly busy is commendable and certainly much better than just lounging around feeling sorry for yourself. But constant busyness is not a good prescription for creativity. It is important to schedule times in the day, the week, and the year just to take stock of your life and review what you have accomplished and what remains to be done.

Shape your space.

Find out what you like and what you hate about life.

The only way to stay creative is to oppose the wear and tear of existence with techniques that organize time, space, and activity to your advantage. It means developing schedules to protect your time and avoid distraction, arranging your surroundings to heighten concentration, cutting out meaningless chores that soak up psychic energy, and devoting the energy thus saved to what you really care about. It is much easier to be personally creative when you maximize optimal experiences in everyday life.

psychic energy

Develop what you lack.

Shift often from openness to closure.

Aim for complexity.

aim for a more complex personality. To do so we need to explore and strengthen those traits that are now lacking, to learn to shift from openness to discipline, within a context of curiosity and awe for the miracle of life. The notion of complexity adds a deeper layer of understanding of why it is important to achieve this. By fully expressing the tendencies of which we are capable, we become part of the energy that creates the future.

Problem finding is important in the daily domain because it helps us focus on issues that will affect our experiences but otherwise may go unnoticed. To practice this skill you might try the following suggestions.