"Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, was recommended to me by Suzanne, the sweet girlfriend of my boyfriend's flat-mate and long-time buddy, Greg.
We were talking about my interests and her studies, and she recommended this book to me, since I was talking about the 'aesthetic experience' and 'meditation' and transformative experiences, values and so on. She asked if I know of this hard-to-pronounce scholar and his theory of flow, and I didn't. She explained he writes about people's experiences after they see an art exhibition, which reminded me of Pierre Bourdieu, a sociology and education scholar I've studied about, but this was different. There would be less French complications and more down-to-earth spiritual air to this, perhaps. In any case, my eyes were wide open, my ears perked up, and I was TOTALLY interested.
Fast-forward a few weeks, and I lay my hands on a fascinating book, in the Chicago O'Hare airport - and guess what? I can hardly pronounce its author's name. Flow? I guess there aren't too many 'flow' theories out there. This is probably it!
I'm reading it like I sometimes like to read books- from the middle, back and forth, on random pages. Tasting it.
So far, it keeps me very interested and mystified!
I'd love to share what I learn from it here.
Wiki: "Flow" Psychology
Wiki: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Vid of M.C on 'Positive Psychology" [7 min.]
Vid of M.C. on "Flow Theory" [3 min.]
The book on Amazon
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