Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention

by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi

Yet too many resources also can have a deadening effect on creativity. When everything is comfortable and better than anywhere else, the desire for novelty turns to thrills and entertainment instead of trying to solve basic problems.

Money gives relief from worries, from drudgery, and makes more time available for one’s real work.

Creative persons are often arrogant and egocentric, but they are also insecure and can benefit from approval.

Alan Kay, whose inventions were central to the development of personal computers, claims semi-seriously that the firm he worked for lost tens of millions of dollars by refusing to install a $14,000 shower in a corner of his office, because most of his new ideas came while showering.

Often intellectual or power elites hide their knowledge on purpose, to keep to themselves the advantages that go with the information.

The priestly castes of Mesopotamia and Egypt, the Chinese bureaucrats, the clerical hierarchies of Europe were not particularly interested in sharing their knowledge with all comers. Thus they were not motivated to make the representation of their knowledge transparent.

Some of this desire for exclusive control of knowledge survives. And even those who have the most selfless and democratic views about the information they control often unwittingly make what they know inaccessible by using a language, a style, or a method of exposition that a layperson cannot understand. Sometimes such obscurantism is inevitable, but often it is an unnecessary habit left over from the past, or a shortcut that makes one’s thoughts more accessible to the initiated while putting them out of anyone else’s reach.

Linguistic obfuscation is only one means by which domains become isolated.

The more general problem is that each domain is becoming increasingly specialized not only in its vocabulary but also in the conceptual organization of its rules and procedures.

What makes this breakdown in communication among disciplines so dangerous is that, as we have repeatedly seen, most creative achievements depend on making connections among disparate domains. The more obscure and separate knowledge becomes, the fewer the chances that creativity can reveal itself.

Not surprisingly, it is difficult to motivate young people to master aspects of the culture that seem cold and alienating. As a result, knowledge in these areas might become eroded and creativity increasingly rare. So one obvious way to enhance creativity is to bring as much as possible of the flow experience into the various domains.

All too often, however, the joy of discovery fails to be communicated to young people, who turn instead to passive entertainment. But consuming culture is never as rewarding as producing it. If it were only possible to transmit the excitement of the people we interviewed to the next generation, there is no doubt that creativity would blossom.