I just finished reading Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience”.  Csikszentmihalyi (who I lovingly refer to as sisszenmantilyhakiirarghyigjo) writes so eloquently about this state of mind that you almost forget you are reading a psychology book. It doesn’t come off as a self help book either.  Just a fountain of useful information about how creativity and concentration can make you happier. – A lazy brain is a sad brain.

My absolute favorite part of this book is when he points out the problem with our culture of worshiping entertainment. Keep in mind this book was written in the 80′s, but it is oh so relevant today. It seems like today everyone is completely lost without their cell phones, the Internet, television, or games. Most people are so consumed with what everyone else is doing, that they forget about themselves.

“The tremendous leisure industry that has arisen in the last few generations has been designed to help fill free time with enjoyable experiences. Nevertheless, instead of using our physical and mental resources to experience flow, most of us spend many hours each week watching celebrated athletes playing in enormous stadiums. Instead of making music, we listen to platinum records cut by millionaire musicians. Instead
of making art, we go admire paintings that brought in the highest bids at the latest auctions. We do not run risks acting on our own beliefs, but occupy hours each day watching actors who pretend to have adventures, engaged in mock-meaningful action.
This vicarious participation is able to mask, at least temporarily, the underlying emptiness of wasted time. But it is a very pale substitute for attention invested in real challenges. The flow experience that results from the use of skills leads to growth; passive entertainment leads nowhere. Collectively we are wasting each year the equivalent of millions of years of human consciousness. The energy that could be used to focus on complex goals, to provide for enjoyable growth, is squandered on patterns of simulation that only mimic reality. Mass leisure, mass culture, and even high culture when attended to passively and for extrinsic reasons — such as the wish to flaunt one’s status — are parasites of the mind. They absorb psychic energy without providing substantive strength in return. They leave us more exhausted, more disheartened than we were before.”

What are you doing with your life? Are you wasting time passively consuming culture? Are you living a life you don’t really want because cause it is “just what you do”? Or are you a creating a life that is all your own?

Go my child…live and love -that’s all you need to do.