European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 15, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                In the flow. When a violinist plays a piece of music Here Itzhak Perlman he must a coordinate several complicated tasks at once.  away by the flow by Lynn Bulmahn Cox news service the secret to being Happy in life is to frequently do things that will put you in your Quot flow Quot a state in which you Are carried away by an experience that is extraordinarily joyous fulfilling and meaningful. So says research psychologist or. Mihaly Csik Szentmihalyi whose life work has been to study "flow.�?�a. ,. A a a a a a a a Csik Szentmihalyi said flow exists in people As diff Rentas Navajo shepherds japanese motorcycle gang members German executives and korean senior citizens. Alt report experiencing remarkably similar experiences when they Are in their flow he said. Quot flow in this Case is the optimal feeling people have while doing something that carries them away the University of Chicago psychology professor said in a memorial address at a Temple Tex. Hospital. A whenever someone is involved in an experience that is , we called it the flow experience because so Many people we talked to used the same metaphor a said Csik Szentmihalyi. Quot they said an Energy possesses them and carried them away like a person is carried away by a River with a Strong  _ Csik Szentmihalyi a research is described in his Book flow the psychology of optimal being. Flow is a feeling that you re part of something larger than yourself Csik Szentmihalyi said. One surgeon described the flow feeling he has when an operation is going Well As like being part of a Well choreographed Ballet. Athletes can experience flow in a game or race. Dancers can feel themselves in a state of flow during a Ballet. Flow May occur in a Bowling Alley or on the Assembly line. It can occur during social interaction or when a. Person works alone. When a violinist plays a piece of music he must do several complicated tasks. His fingertips Are fingering the strings his hand is moving the Bow his brain is a  sound and integrating the notes he reads on the Sheet of music with what he shearing. He must also constantly be thinking about what he is doing and How he should interpret the music and How All that fits in with the whole piece he is playing Csik Szentmihalyi said. Quot when you Are in this experience everything is coordinated Quot he said. Quot flow is not necessarily in the parts of life that Are most relaxing or in the part of your life that we May think of As the most Happy Quot said Csik Szentmihalyi. Quot you May not necessarily feel pleasantly relaxed. You feel pleasantly intense. You May not even feel Happy at the time because of the intensity of the activity. But afterwards you feel that. That activity was the ultimate Quot. He said most people get depressed when they Are at Home with nothing to do. He said their free time can Only to get enjoyed if they Are involved in an activity that produces flow. Quot a great amount of life goes Down the Drain without being meaningful or enjoyable Quot Csik Szentmihalyi said americans most time consuming pastime a watching television a is an activity Csik Szentmihalyi said was Quot notoriously Low Quot in providing a flow experience a yet he said people spend 10 times longer watching television than pursuing Active Leisure. Quot going Bowling or going to a movie is much More. Exciting and satisfying than watching to Quot. A Csik Szentmihalyi said. Quot we Haven to Learned the fact hat free time and Leisure time Are not automatically  he said people tend to watch More television after a a a a a a Day that began with problems and frustrations. He said a better outlet for such frustrations is to come Home and either meditate or play sports a. Csik Szentmihalyi said he first noticed the process of flow when working on a dissertation about creativity 30 years ago. A in studying How creative artists functioned psychologically Csik Szentmihalyi said he was fascinated that Quot a person could spend Days a literally a working at his sculpture or Canvas Quot without noticing How much time had passed and often without eating or sleeping As he worked on a piece of Art a after All that he said artists commonly turned the finished painting against the  began another project. Csik Szentmihalyi said he concluded that the True goal of the creative activity was not to produce a Beautiful Canvas or sculpture but something else that was even More important. Quot producing a work was almost an excuse for getting involved in  of creation who  of someday becoming famous or Selling the o painting was important a but that motivation was nothing really compared with the creative  Csik Szentmihalyi wondered if the Joy of being involved in a creative process was something Only artists a a a experienced. So his next project involved interviewing. People involved in activities other than creative arts. The subjects of the interviews included people from All walks of life from chess players to dancers athletes to Rock climbers and  asked Quot How do you feel when things Are going Well Quot the subjects gave answers remarkably similar to those Given by the artists Csik Szentmihalyi had earlier studied. A Quot i concluded that there is a kind of common experience that seems to occur whenever someone is involved in an experience that is rewarding Quot Csik Szentmihalyi next wanted to find out whether. People can have flow experiences in their daily lives. He handed out electronic pagers and questionnaire booklets to a Large number of people he said the booklets had pages filled with such questions As Quot what Are you thinking about right now7&Quot Quot what Are you doing Quot Quot who Are you with Quot Quot How do you feel Quot Quot at various times of the Day we set off the signals Quot Csik Szentmihalyi said. Quot at the signal the person would Stop what he was doing and fill out a Page of the Booklet Quot the researchers collected More than 200,000 self a reports from people engaged in All sorts of activities to said. They studied people not Only in the United states but from All Over the world. Csik Szentmihalyi said he found that work produced More of these optimal experiences than did Leisure time  Quot in a not saying that flow is the ultimate value of life Quot he said. Quot unfortunately people can get this feeling from destructive actions. Young vandals describe breaking into a House As a flow  a he said that archaeologists have found that in several civilizations one a culture has achieved greatness its people Quot used All kinds of artificial stimulates to occupy their minds when no external stimuli motivated them to  this led to each civilization s downfall. He said some people today May turn to drugs or a alcohol trying to experience he feeling a person would get during a flow experience. Quot if you try to Short circuit this experience you lose tie whole Point which is the feeling you re stretching your skills beyond where they wore before Quot Csik Szentmihalyi said. Tuesday january 15, 1991 the stars and stripes a a a Page 13