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cRsArIvIrY. Copyright @ 1996 by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.Al1 rights reserved.Printed
in the United Statesof America. No part of this book may be used or reproducedin any
rrurnner whatsoever without written permission except in the caseof brief quotatlons
embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information addressHarperCollins Publishers,Inc., 10 East53rd Street,New York, IrIY 10022.
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FIRST EDITION

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

TH nFl o v oF enE A Trv rrv

reative personsdiffer frorn one another in a variety of ways,
but in one respect they are unanimous: They all love what
they do. It is not the hope of achieving fame or makirrg money that
drives them; rather, it is the opportuniry to do the r,vork that they
enjoy doing. Jacob Rabinow explains: "You irwent for the hell of it.
I don't start with the idea, ''What will rnake money?' This is a rough
world; moneyi

irnportant. But if I have to trade between what's fun

for me and what's money-making,

I'ii take what's fun." The novelist
Naguib Mahfouz concurs in more genteel tones: "I love my work

more than I love what it produces. I am dedrcated to the work
regardless of its consequences." We found the same sentirnents in
every single interview.
What is extraordinary in this case is that we talked to engineers
and chemists, writers

and musicians, businesspersons and social

refbrrners, historians and architects, sociologists and physicians-and
they all agree that they do what they do primarily because it's fun.
Yet many others in the same occupations don't enjcly what they do.
So we have to assume that it ts not what these people do that counts
but how they do it. Being an engineer or a carpenter is not in itself

L

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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 ener€iy, 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

sonle individuals rnust have developed a
llervous systeill in which the discovery of novelty stinrulates the plea\Lrre centers in the brain. Just as sorlle indivrduals derive a keener
pleasure from sex and others frorn fbocl, so sonle rlust have been
By randonr rlutations,

born urho derived a keener pleasure frotn learning something nerv. It
rs possible rhat children who were nlore curior.ts ran ltlore risks and
so \vere more iikely to die early than their nrorc stolid companlons.
llLrt it is also probable that those htttrrart sroups that learned to appreci;rte the curious children alnotrg them, and helped to protect and
reward them so that they could grow to irlaturiry and have children
of their own, were nlore successfui than groups that ignored the
potentiaily creative in their rnidst.
If this is true, we are the descendantsof arlcestorsr.vho recognized
the importance of novelry protected those inclividuals who enjoyed
being creative, and learned from them. Ilecause they had among
them individuals who enjoyed explorinu and inventing, they were
better prepared to face the unpredictable conditions that threatened
their survival. So we too share this propcnsity for enjoying whatever
r,r.,edo, providecl we can do it in a new way, provided we can drscover
or design something new in doing it. This is why creativiry no matter in what domain it takes place, is so errjoyable. This is rvhy Brencia
Milner, arnong many others, said: "I rvould say that I arn iinpartial
about wirar is inrportattt or grctt, bccause every ne\'v lirtle discovery,
even a tiny one, is exciting at the motnent of discovery."
But this is only part of the story. Another force tnotivates us, and it
is rnore primitive and rnore powerful than the urge to create: the
fbrce of entropy. This too is a survival mechanisnr buiit into our
genes by evolution. It gives us pleasure when we are comfortable,
when we relax, when we can get away rn'ith Gehng good rn'ithout
expending energy. If we didn't have this built-irr regulator, r've could
easily kill ourselves by running ragged and then rrot l-raving enough
reserves of strength, body fat, or nclrvotls ellergy t<; face the unexp e c te d .
This is the reason why the urge to relax, to curl tlp conrfortably
on the sofa r.vhenever we can get awav with it, is so strorlg' Because
this conservative urlie is so por,verful, fbr ntost people "free tirne"
rneans a chance to rvind down, to park the nrir-rd in netltral. When
there are no external demands, entropy kicks in, and unless we
understand what is happeninu, it Lrkes over our bo<iy arrd our mind.

| 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?

In order to answer that question, many years ago I started to study
people who seemed to be doing things that rhey enjoyed but were
not rewarded for with money or farne. Chess players, rock climbers,
dancers, and composers devoted many hours a week to their avocations. Why were they doing it? It was clear from talking ro rhem rhat
what kept them motivated was the quality of experince they felt
when they were involved with the activity. This feeling didn'r come
when they were relaxing, when they were taking drugs or alcohol,
or when they were consuming the expensive privitreges of wealth.
Rather,

it

often

involved

painful,

risky, diflicult

activities that

stretched the person's capacity and involved an element of novelry
and discovery. This optirnal experience is what I have called flow,
because many of the respondents described the feeling when things
were going well as an almost automatic, effortless, yet highly focused
state of consciousness.
The

flow

experience was described in almost identical terms
regardless of tHe activiry that produced it. Attrletes, artists, religious
mystics, scientists, and ordinary working people described their most
rewarding experiences with very similar words. And the description
did not vary much by culture, gender, or age; old and young, rich

' 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

night's date' The
they are actually thinking about lunch, or last
house is
worker thinks about the weekend; the mother cleaning
with
worried about her child; the golfer's mind is preoccupied
olrr concenhow his swing looks to his liiends' In flow, however'
of mind is
tration is focused on what we do' One-pointedness
skills' and it ls
requirecl by the close match between challengesand
availability of
made possibleby the clariry of goals and ttre constant
feedback.
Another typical ele5. Distractionsare excludedfront consciousness'
is relevant here
ment of flow is that we are aware only of what
tax problems
and now. If the musician thinks of his health or
the surgeon's
If
when playing, he is likely to hit a wrong note'
is in danger'
mind wanders during an operation, the patient's life
which
present'
Flow is the result of intense concentration on the
anxi ety i n
re l i e v e su s o f the usttal fearsthat causedepressi onand
everyday life.
involved to
6. Tltere is no worry offailure. While in flow, we are too
a feeling of
be concerned with failure. Some people describe it as
to ta l c o n tro l ;butactual l yw earenoti ncontrol ,i t' sj ustthatthe
be concenissue does not even come up- if it did, we wouid not
what
between
traring totally. becauseotrr atterltion wotlld be split
w e d i d a n d th ' efeel i ngofcontrol .Thereasonthatfai l urei snotan
our skills
issue is that in flow it is clear what has to be done' and
are potentially adequate to the challenges'
disappears.lneveryday life' we are always monl7 . Self-consciottsness
the alert to
toring how we appear to other people; we are on
to make a
defend ourselves fi'om potential slights and anxious
burden' ln
favorable impression. Typically this awarenessof self is a
about proflow we are too involved in what we are doing to care
generaily
we
tecting the ego. Yet after an episode of flow is over'
from it with a stronger self-concept; we know that we have
.*.rg.
feel that
succeededin meeting a difficult challenge' We might even
have
we have stepped out of the boundaries of the ego and
musician
become part, at least temporarily, of a larger entiry' The
at
feels at one with the harmony of the cosmos, the athlete moves

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

FoR Fr.orx/ rN CREAltvrry

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.

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The Clarity of Goals
In certain con<litions, the creative process begins with the goal of
s o l v i rrg a p ro b l em that i s gi ven to rhe person by someone el se or i s
suggested by the state of the art in the domain' Moreover, anything
that does not work as well as it cogld can provide a clear goal to the
inventor. This is what Frank Offner clescribes:
Oh, I love to solve pr:oblems' If it is why our dishwasher does
not work, or why the automobile does not w-ork, or how the
ne'rve works, or anything. Norv I am working on how the hair
cells work, and ah . . . it is so very interesting. I don't care what
kind of problem it is. If I can solve rt, it is fun. It is really a lot of
fun to solve problems, isn't it? Isn't that what is interesting in life?
Especially if people say one thing and you show that they have
been wrong for twenty years and you can soive it in five minutes.
Or the goal rnay emerge as a probiem in the domain-a gap in the
network of knowledge, a contradiction among the findings, a puzzling result. Here the goal is to restore harrntlny in the system by reconciling the apparent disparities. The physicist viktor weisskopf
describes the enjoyment involved in this process:
Well, in science, obviously, if I understand something, you
know, a new discovery, it need not be n1y own, a discovery of
somebody else, where I say, "Aha, now I understand natural processesthat I did not understand before," that is the joy of insight.
'what
it tells
In music it is the insight into what the piece means.
you, what the composer wanted to tell you, the beaury or expression or religious feelings, things like that.
For artists the goal of the activity is not so easily found. In fact, the
more creative the problem, the less clear it is what needs to be done.
Discovered problems, the ones that generate the greatest changes in
the domain, are also the most diificult to enjoy working on because
of their elusiveness.In such cases,the creative person somehow must
deveiop an unconscious mechanism that tells him or her what to do.
The poet Gyorgy Faludy usually does not start writing until a
"voice" tells him, often in the middle of the night, "Gyorgy, it's time
to start writing." He adds ruefully: "That voice has nry number, but I

a

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

Well One Is Doing

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

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C tr. l aTtvttY

I l ri s i s i n d e e tl .r tl i l fi ttrl t p| obl errr. Marrv rrti sts gi ve up beceusei t
is just too excruciating to wait until critics or galleries take notice
ancl pass judgnrent on their Lranvases.Ilesearch scientists drift away
from pure science because they cannot tolerate the iong cycles of
insecurity before reviewers and editors evaluate their results. So how
can they experience flow without external information about their
p c rfo rma n c e ?
doitrg '
ThE solution seems to be that those individ,pls w[9 ke,ep
critefield's
the
crealive wrirk are those who succeed in internalizing
t.'
. ria of,judgment to the extent that they can give feedbeck to themselves,without having to wait to hear from experts' The poet who
keeps enjoying writing verse is rhe one w-ho knows how good each
line is, how appropriate is each word chosen. The scientist rvho
eryoys her work is the one who has a sellse of what a good experiment is like and who appreciates it when a test is q'ell run or when a
report is clearly -uvritten. Thel she nced not r,vait until October to
see if her name is on tlle Nobel Prize list.
them and
Many creative scientists say that the difference between
good
from
ideas
their less creative peers is the ability to separate bad
,f ones, so that they clon't waste lnuch time exploring blind alleys'
Everyone has both bad and good ideas all the time, they say' But
some people can't tell thenr apart until it's too late, until they have
a-lready invested a great deal of time in the unprofitable hunches.
This is another fornr of the ability to give oneself feedback: to know
in advarrce what is {basible ancl what will work, without having to
suffer the consequences of bad judp5ment. At Linus Pauling's sixtieth
birthday celebration, a studept :rsked him, "Dr. Pauling, hor'v does
one go about having good ideas?" He replied, "You have a lot of
ideas and throw away the baci o6es."'fo do that, of course, one has to
have a very well internalized picture of r.vhat the domain is like and
what constitutes "good" and "bad" ide:rsaccording to the fieid'
and Skills
problem is rarely easy.ln fact, in order to be
a
creative
The purstiit of
enjoyable it shogld be hard, and of course so it is, almost by definition. It is never easy to break new ground, to ventLrre into the
unknown. When one st'.lrts out, the difliculties Inay seelrr almost

Balancing

Challenges

overwhelming. Here is how Freenlan Dyson describes this aspect of
the orocess:

T s r Fl ow ot C n e a.rrvtl v

1,17

Well, I think that you have to describe it as sort of a struggle. I
have to aiways force myself to write, and also to work harder at a
science problem. You have to put blood, sweat, and tears into it
first. And it is awfully hard to get started. I think most writers have
this problem. I mean, it's part of the business.You may work very
hard for a week producing the first page. That's really blood, tears,
and sweat, and there is nothing else to describe it. You have to
force yourself to push and push and push with the hope that sonething good will corne out. And you have to go through that processbefore it really starts to flow easily, and without that preliminary forcing and pushing probabiy nothing wouid ever happen. So,
I think that is what distinguishesit froni just having a good timeyou have a good time once you are really in the flowing phase,but
y o u h a v e to o v e rc o rn esonre sort of b.rrri er to get there. That i s
why I say it is unconscious, because you don't know actually
whether you are really getting anywhere or noL. In that phase it
just seemsto be unadulteratedtorture.
The creative person is not immune to the conflict befween the two
programs we a1l carry in our genetic inheritance. As L)yson knows,
even the most creative persons must overcome the barrier of entropy.
It is irnpossible to accomplish something that is truly new and worthwhile without struggling with it. It isn't just in competitive sports that
the saying "no pain, no gain" applies. The less well defined the probiem, the more ambitious it is, and the harder it is for the creatir.'enerson to get a handle on it. Ilarry Comrnoner points out:
I enjoy doing things that other people won't do. Because what
arb they? They're usually things that are difEcult and irltportantand that people shy away from. I have a general approach to thinking of the way in which issuesdevelop. i'm interested in the orrgins of problerns. And so I have a prery good idea of wirere things
are going, and w-hati irnportant and what isn't inrportant. And I
try very hard to be at the cutting edge of problerns. Very often that
puts me so far out in front that people are upset about it, but that''s

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-

and hard work,

ageable context. The same idea is expressedby Linus Pauling:
I think one thing that I do is to bring ideas from one field of
knowledge into another fieid of knowledge. And, I've often said I
don,t think that I'm snlarter than a lot of other scientists,but perhaps I think more about the problems. I have a picture, a sort of
general theory of the universe in my mind that I've built up over
th e d e c a d e s .If I read an arri cl e. or hear someone gi ve a semi nar
talk, or in some other way get sorne piece of information about
science that I hadn't had before, I ask myself, "How does that fit
into my picture of the universe?" and if it doesn't fit, I ask, "Why
doesn't it fit in?"
The strategies creative individuals develop are not always successful. They take risks, and what is risk without an occasional failure?
When the challenges become too great for the person to cope with,
a sense of frustration rather than joy creeps in-at least for a while.
Our interview with John Reed took place a few years after Citicorp
was bloodied in the market; its shares lost a great deal of their value
almost overnight. Reed blamed himself for not foreseeing the contingency that caused the loss. As a result, at the time he felt that some
of the fun had gone out of his job. what used to be spontaneous
turned into hard work; he had to force himself to be more of an
accountant than a builcler and leader; and the new skill he had to
acquire required unfamiliar discipline'
The Merging of Action and Awareness
But when the challengesare jusr right, the creative processbegins to
hum, ancl all other concerns are temporarily shelved in the deep
involvement with the activity. Here is Dyson again, describing how it
feels after the initial struggle is over:
I always find that when I am writing, it is really the fingers that
are doing it and not the brain. Somehow the writing takes charge.
And the same thing happens of course with equations. You don't

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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

llorving ink and the flowing of ideas:
I write with this pen [he removes a fountain pen frorn his breast
pocket and holds it up]. And itk very clear to me that rny abiliry to
think and write at the same time depends on the flow of ink. The
thing I enjoy most is the flow of my own ideas and getting them
down on paper. I will not write with a ballpoint pen, because rt
doesn't really fiow That's why I use a lbuntain pen. And only a
fountain pen that really works very well.
The novelist Richard Stern gives a classic description of how it
t"celsto become lost in the process of writing and to feel the rightness
of one's actions in terms of what is happening in that special world of
one'.sown creation:
At your best you're not thinking, Hor'r' arn I making my way
aheadin the world by doing this? No. You're concentrated on your
characters,on the situation, on the form of the book, on the words
rvhich are coming out. And their shape.You've lost . . . you're not
rr) ego at that point. It's not competitive. it's . . . I rvould use the

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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

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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,

you're right in the work, you lose your sense of time,
you're completely enraptured, you're cornpletely caugirt up in
what you're doing, and you're sort of srvayedby the possibrlities
yolr see in tiris rn'ork. If that becomes too powerful, then yoLl get
up, because the excitement is too great. You can't continue to
work or contirlue to see the end of the work because you're
jumping ahead of yourself all the time.'The idea is to be so . ' ' so
with it that there's no future or past, it's just an extended
satt,trated
present in which you're, uh, making meaning. And dismantling
meaning, and remaking it. Witliout undue regard for the words
you're using. Itt meaning carried to a high order. It's not Just
essential communication, darly comurunication; it's a total can1^nrunication. When you're working on something and you're
r.vorking well, you have the feeling that there's no other r'vay of
sayingwhat you'rc s.rying.
He captures precisely the sense of flor.ving along this extended presenr and the powerful sense of doing exactly the right thing the only
way it could be done. It may not happen often, but when it does the
beaury of it justifies all the hard work.
Creativity

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 youll€l 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

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do not becomc- f:rmous. l,et fame be sor-nethingthat you accept
graciously if you get it, but rtake sure that it is a career that you
can enjoy. That requires intrinsic motivation. And try to pick a setting in which vou c:lr) r,vork on the problems that intrinsically
niotivate you even if theV are not excitilg to others. Try to have
the situational setting so that you can eqjoy that work intrinsically,
even if you are out of step with the time'"
Scientists often describe the autotelic aspects of their work as the
exhilaration that comes frorn the pursuit of truth and of beaury.
what they seem to describe, however, is the joy of discovery, of solving a problem, of being akrleto express an observed relationship in a
simple and elegant form. So what is rewarding is not a my-sterioul
irreffable external goal but the activiry of science itself' It is the
'*.,,and.
# ' i u o ri tth a t
c o u n ts , n ot the attai nment. OIcourse thi s di sti ncti on i s to
a certain extent misleading, because without occasional successesthe
scientist might become discouraged. But what makes science intrinsicaily rewarding is the everyday practice, not the rare success.This is
how Subrahmanyan chandrasekhar, the Nobel laureate physicist,
d e s c ri b e sh i s o w n m o ti vati on:
There are r\,vo things about tne u'hich people generally don't
know. I've never worked in anything which is glamorous in ar.ry
sense.Thatt point nurnber one. Itrint number two: I have always
worked in areaswhich, during the time I have workecl on them,
did not attract attention.
is an ambiguous word. successwith respect to
The word success
the outside? or successwith respect to oneseif?And if it is a successwith respect to the outside, then how do you evaluate it? very
often outside sllccressis irreievant, wroltg, antl misplaced" So how
can one talk about it? Extcrnall1" you may think I am successfui
becausepeopie write about some aspectsof nry work" But that is
an external judgment. And I have no idea as to how to value that
judgment.
Successis not or-reof rny nrotives.Becausesuccessstandsin contrast to failure. But no worthwhile efrort in one'.slife is either a
successor a faiiure. What do you rnean by success?You take a
problem and you want ro solve it. well, if you solve it, in a limited
senseit is a success.But it may be a trivial problem. So a judgment

T s s F t-o w or C nr:nl tvt' rY

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

strikes me as a rather desperatesituation to

be in.

FTOW AND FIAPPINESS
what is the relation berween flow and happiness? This is a very
interesting and delicate question. At first, it is easy to conclude that
the two must be the sanre thing. But actually the connection is a bit
more complex. First of all, when we are in flow, we do not usually
the simple reason that in flow we feel only what is
feel happy-for
relevant to the activiry. Happiness is a distraction' The poet in the
nriddle of writing or the scientist working out equations does not
feel happy, at least not without losing tire thread of his or her
thought.
It is only after we get out of flow, at the end of a session or in
nloments of distraction within it, that we might indulge in feeling
h*ppy. And then there is the rush of well*being, of satisfaction that
.or]r., when the poem is completed or the theorem is proved. In the
long run, the more flow we experience in daily life, the more likely
lve are to feel hrppy overall. But this also depends on what activiry
provides flow. IJnfortunately, many people find the only challenges

i 2,+

(l l {L.A rl vl rY

they can respontl to are violence, garnbling, randor-n sex, of clrtrgs.
of
Son're of these exper:iencescan be enjoyable, but these episodes
t1me.
over
happiness
florv do not add Lip to a sc-nseof satisfaction and
Pleasure does not lead to creativiry but soon turns into addictionthe thrall of entroPy.
So the link betrveen flow and happiness depends on whether the
chall1ow-producing activity is conrplex, rvhether it leads to new
we
lenges and hence to personal as well as cultural growth. Thus
they
because
happy,
,"ijnt conclude that all o'r respondents mllst be
there
ao1ttl"y their work, and their work is certainly complex' But
a
person
if
what
are further cornplications to consider. For instance,
his
enjoyed being a physicist for thirty years' and then found out that
Horv
peopie?
of
work resultecl in a nuclear clevice that killeci rpilligns
would Jonas salk have feit if his vaccine, instead of, saying lives, had
not
been used bv others for biologicai rvarfare? certainly these are
fbr
idle questions in today's world, and they suggestthat it is possible
turhappicomplex activities that irroduce flor'v to cause long-range
ness. Yet when all is sarcland clone, it is much easier to be happl'
when one's life has been enjoyable.

':FLow

AnID TlrE Evoru':rroN

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

worcls, no matter how relativistic and tolerant we have become, we

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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.