Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 1934-2021
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
1934–2021
"The work that I'm best known for is flow theory and the studies of flow experience. People have applied the studies all over the world, and it has influenced many schools, factories, offices, and even political systems.
If I were to try to go back to the origins of the theory, I would say that it probably started germinating in 1944–45, when I was ten years old. At that time, the war was creating a lot of anxiety everywhere, and as a ten-year-old I saw the whole world I took for granted crumbling. I realized, however, that when I played chess, I completely forgot what was going on, and for hours I had a great time. I felt completely involved, my mind was working, I had to be alert, and I had to process information about what was happening. I didn't have any chance to be distracted or any chance to worry about anything. I also noticed then that if I played against somebody really good, it wasn't much fun. If I played against somebody who played badly, it wasn't fun either because I started getting distracted and thinking about other things. But if my opponent was somebody in my own range of abilities, then the game was fun. "
MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI (1934–2021)
was a Hungarian-born polymath who recognized and named the psychological concept of "flow," a highly focused mental state conducive to productivity. He was Claremont Graduate University’s Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Management as well as founder and co-director of the Quality of Life Research Center (QLRC), a nonprofit research institute that studies positive psychology, which looks at human strengths such as optimism, creativity, intrinsic motivation, and responsibility. Csikszentmihalyi was also former head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago.
His research and theories on the psychology of optimal experience have revolutionized psychology and have been adopted in practice by national leaders such as Bill Clinton and Tony Blair as well as top members of the global executive elite who run the world's major corporations. Csikszentmihalyi is the author of several popular books about his theories, including the bestselling Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience; The Evolving Self; Creativity; Finding Flow; and Good Business. The Wall Street Journal has listed Flow among the six books "every well-stocked business library should have." Though published in the early 1990s, Flow has continued to draw attention from both researchers and the general public and has been translated into more than twenty languages.
REF above: via The Edge, Russell Weinberger Ed.
https://www.edge.org/mihaly-csikszentmihalyi-1934%E2%80%932021
In the 2004 TED Talk Flow, The Secret to Happiness—which has been viewed more than five million times—Csikszentmihalyi weaves an origin story with many strands. Growing up during World War II, he was disillusioned by the failures of the adults around him, who seemed unable to “withstand the tragedies that the war visited on them.” Elsewhere, Csikszentmihalyi has observed that when he was in a prison camp as a ten-year-old, his only moments of joy came while playing chess.
As a young man, he says, “I do think that I experienced flow before I understood what it was,” while rock climbing, cooking, painting, and playing chess. As he’s gotten older, he’s had to make adaptations. He still enjoys hiking, but the difficult, dangerous climbing that used to put him in a flow state has been impossible for many decades. “I suppose it depends on the person,” Csikszentmihalyi says. “I get flow from more things, but not as deeply as before.”
REF above: via University of Chicago Magazine
https://mag.uchicago.edu/education-social-service/whats-game
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is one of the pioneers of the scientific study of happiness. He was born in Hungary in 1934 and, like many of his contemporaries, he was touched by the Second World War in ways that deeply affected his life and later work. During his childhood, he was put in an Italian prison. It was here, amid the misery and loss of family and friends during the war, that he had his first inkling of his seminal work in the area of flow and optimal experience. In an interview, he noted, “I discovered chess was a miraculous way of entering into a different world where all those things didn’t matter. For hours I’d just focus within a reality that had clear rules and goals”
REF above via (Sobel, D. (1995, January). Interview: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
October 2021 Obituary and life story from The Washington Post:
