In his thought-provoking, and wonderful book "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi writes about his thirty-year study of "states of optimal experience" - the experiences of individuals who report peak performance, effortless control, unselfconsciousness, enjoyment, happiness, deep involvement, release from the bonds of space-time, and exhilarating feelings of transcendence. Here are a few quotes:
"Because optimal experience depends on the ability to control what happens in consciousness moment by moment, each person has to achieve it on the basis of his own individual efforts and creativity..."Flow" will examine the process of achieving happiness through control over one's inner life...because only if we understand the way subjective states are shaped can we master them...everything we experience - joy or pain, interest or boredom - is represented in the mind as information. If we are able to control this information, we can decide what our lives will be like...A person who has achieved control over psychic energy and has invested it in consciously chosen goals cannot help but grow into a more complex being. By stretching skills, by reaching toward higher challenges, such a person becomes an increasingly extraordinary individual..."Flow" is the way people describe their state of mind when consciousness is harmoniously ordered."
"J.S. Mill wrote, "No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible, until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought."
"How we feel about ourselves, the joy we get from living, ultimately depend directly on how the mind filters and interprets everyday experiences. Whether we are happy depends on inner harmony, not on the controls we are able to exert over the great forces of the universe. Certainly we should keep on learning how to master the external environment, because our physical survival may depend on it. But such mastery is not going to add one jot to how good we as individuals feel, or reduce the chaos of the world as we experience it. To do that we must learn to achieve mastery over consciousness itself."
"Each of us has a picture, however vague, of what we would like to accomplish before we die. How close we get to attaining this goal becomes the measure of the quality of our lives. If it remains beyond reach, we grow resentful or resigned; if it is at least in part achieved, we experience a sense of happiness and satisfaction."
