Why should you go with the 'flow' to create a sustainable world?

I have long been engaged with Mihaly Cziksentmihaly concept of flow as a natural state.(“Flow: The psychology of optimal experience”, 1990). Flow is about taking action at just the right activity level. In any area of our lives we have actions to take, in work, in our personal relationships, with our leisure activities and with our fitness. If the action is at the appropriate level of challenge, we experience flow.Keith Hanna , M.E.Des., the author of Higher Purpose, Higher Profit: Putting Core Values Into Service , articulates it thus:

There is a state of optimal experience that athletes call "being in the zone." The zone state is that rare and special place where everything clicks, performances peak and we lose all track of time. Satisfaction in the zone is not like the superficial and ephemeral kind that comes with a short-lived success or achievement, but is deeply fulfilling, passionate and touching. The zone state is not only for athletes, but for anyone involved in any creative pursuit. The psychologist Mihaly Cziksentmihaly labelled this experience "flow" and proposed a fairly simple set of rules for creating it.

Cziksentmihaly proposed three states of experience. Flow is the optimal, but rare, state of human experience, a transcendent feeling of bliss when we lose ourselves in the pleasure of the moment. We enter a state of flow whenever we match the skills we have with the challenges we undertake. Boredom and anxiety are the other experiences that border flow and reflect a misalignment of skills and challenges. If I do not challenge myself enough or if I am overskilled to perform the task in front of me, I will experience boredom; if my skill level is not adequate to the task and the challenge level is overwhelming, I experience anxiety. It is only when the challenge level is a tad beyond my skill level that I experience flow. Flow comes from stretching and growing as a person. The activity levels that create flow today may not do so tomorrow. As I rise in skill level and mastery, I need to pick more interesting challenges to engage in.'

Creation of flow is a beautiful metaphor for what we are working toward in life. What we strive for is precise mastery of skills through a constant and progressively more challenging repetition of engagements, skills and activities. However, early on in life we often experience negative conditioning from our creative attempts from educators or parents. On Creativity Portal, Dan Goodwin offer five steps to reignite a lost sense of pleasure around the act of creating:

One of the major reasons why we don’t create more freely and abundantly is simply because we’ve forgotten how to enjoy it....Times when you’ve felt completely blocked and unable to come up with a single idea, criticism from others (and yourself), the pressures of other commitments, and not creating regularly enough to find your flow are just a few of the factors that have meant creating in recent times has been a struggle at best. At worst it’s been nothing but a source of pain and frustration.'

Reclaiming your natural propensity for flow, witnessed frequently in children up until the age of cognition (or maybe formal education stultification), is a worthy investment for adults. Meditative practices can deliver the 'sense' of flow, but to attain and retain this experience in mundane circadian activity is the worthier outcome, not the temporary and fleeting bliss.

Sven Hemlin from the The Sahlgrenska Academy, Göteborg University delivered a white paper on 'Creative knowledge environments. Creativity and innovation capacity factors in and around research groups in biotechnology' which elicited the importance of a variety of requirements that enable creativty in communities:

'Results showed that creative excellence was related first to the social CKE factors: group cohesion, support and understanding and continuous contacts in groups and leadership; second to the cognitive CKE factors: idea generation, realization of ideas, high standards and quality, critical attitude and face to face cognitive interaction; and finally the de-emphasized physical CKE factors: resources, meeting points, labs and instruments. A final conclusion was drawn where in addition to the important group climate factor we emphasize group leadership and epistemic factors in CKEs as the three primary drivers for processes in creativity and innovation in biotechnology and similar science fields.Social CKEs. A creative environment is strongly dependent on a socially sound and robust environment – this was considered as the most important factor by many groups. The social environment comprises a number of psycho-social aspects which closely overlap with the cognitive CKE. First, one important aspect is the psycho-social climate of the group, its human atmosphere, the emotional mood of the group and the group’s culture (beliefs, norms and expected behaviours). According to interviewees, this ‘group climate’ stimulates creativity if it is open, brings joy, excitement and safety as well as possibilities for individual freedom and initiative. In addition, a CKE should incorporate a basic respect and honesty between group members. A smaller group of respondents emphasized a common attitude or goal between group members, because that would lead to success for the group (again, this relates to the cognitive side of CKEs). In the excellent environments the group climate theme was particularly emphasized.'

Whether individual or collective, there are requirements that foster the flow state.
Group flow. Csikszentmihalyi suggests several ways in which a group could work together so that each individual member could achieve flow. The characteristics of such a group include:

Creative spatial arrangements: Chairs, pin walls, charts; but no tables, therefore primarily work standing and moving.
Playground design : Charts for information inputs, flow graphs, project summary, craziness (here also craziness has a place), safe place (here all may say what is otherwise only thought), result wall, open topics
Parallel, organized working
Target group focus
Advancement of existing one (prototyping)
Increase in efficiency through visualization
Existence of differences among participants represents an opportunity, rather than an obstacle.

The sense of immersion is one. Once the challenge and skill level of the person and the situation are in the optimal conditions for flow to occur the individual may have an optimal experience (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).

The optimal experience is marked by:

A challenging activity that requires skill
The merging of action and awareness
Clear Goals and feedback
Concentration on the task at hand
Lacking sense of worry about losing control
The loss of self consciousness
The transformation of time

The key to the optimal experience is that it is "autotelic." This means that the activity is done because it is rewarding regardless of what the original goals are. The individual is doing the activity for the sake of the activity. Now that you know what conditions are required for the optimal experience to occur you can work on aligning your challenges and skill levels

Rob Schulteis book 'Bone Games' talks about how states of consciousness are precipitated through various undertakings, which range from Shamanism to long-distance running, mountaineering in Nepal, Plains Indian vision quests, and survival at sea. Schulteis himself had peak experience after a bad fall when climbing in the Colorado Rockies. This state of consciousness he says he experienced is known by various terms such as "muga-mushin" and "heijoshin" in the Japanese Martial Arts and has a direct relationship with the "Flow" state.

Whilst not a fan of James Redfield's 'Ten Insights' book per se, his continuum of said “Insights" in regard to the more complex milestone components of flow is altogether evident:

The First Insight—A Critical Mass—A new spiritual awakening is occurring in human culture, an awakening brought about by a critical mass of individuals who experience their lives as a spiritual unfolding, a journey in which we are led forward by mysterious conincidence.

The Second Insight—The Longer Now—The creation of a new, more complete world view, which replaces a five-hundred-year-old preoccupation with secular survival and comfort. There is awakening to real purpose of human life on the planet and the real nature of the universe.

The Third Insight—A Matter of Energy—We live not only in a material universe, but in a universe of dynamic energy. Everything extant is a field of energy that we can sense and intuit. By focusing attention of energy—intention, we can influence flow of energy.

The Fourth Insight—The Struggle for Power—We learn to manipulate or force others to five us energy and thus gain energy for ourselves. When we successfully dominate, we feel stronger. Others feel weaker and fight back. Conflict rises.

The Fifth Insight—The Message of the Mystics—Insecurity and violence end when we see interconnectivity.

The Sixth Insight—Clearing the Past—Loss of connection to others, to the universe, and –most especially—to ourselves is the core of stress. Stress destroys potential by corrupting judgment.

The Seventh Insight—Engaging the Flow—Experience personal purposefulness and meaning engages us more with and enhances the general flow of potential of life in general. [This idea from Redfield is not unlike the highly engaging and successful management theories of Cziksentmihaly.]

The Eight Insight—The Interpersonal Ethic—Culture and people grow in tandem with each other in an ethic of sharing, growth, and security.

The Ninth Insight—the Emerging Culture—Synchronistic growth of the technical and the human that rises to the highest potential of existence that is possible.

If we couple these transformatory stages with Stephen Byrams nine dimensions of operation:

The Nine Dimensional Pattern

SS—an almost purity of conceptualization, theory, and strategizing

SE—high level of strategy with emphasis on how task will theoretically be accomplished

SI—high level of strategy with emphasis on the role people will play

ES—strong tactician with emphasis on guiding the execution of plans and strategies

EE—the “worker bee” who, with shovel in hand, gets the ditch dug

EI—the person intent on execution of tasks through full implementation of people assets

IS—high level of theoretical, conceptual, and strategic concern for people

IE—high level of concern about how events, circumstances, situations impact people

II—high level of empathy and selfless, vicarious service to others

we can arrive at a symphony of sustainable creation.

Life is no longer about a 'zero sum' offensive where someone has to lose in order for someone else to win. These material drivers have brought about a dystopia of cataclsymic proportions. By bringing flow as part of the natural state of our beingness we begin to realise a state of abundance from the sense of diminishing a poverty mindset, where we are lesser for lack of perceived and conditioned values which are resourced in financial and material gain.

Links:
http://www.boutman.com/flow.htm
http://www.uta.fi/tasti/papereita/hemlin_creative_knowledge_environments...
http://www.creativity-portal.com/cca/dan.goodwin/fall-in-love.html
http://www.amazon.com/Bone-Games-Extreme-Shamanism-Transcendence/dp/1558...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tenth-Insight-James-Redfield/dp/0553504185
http://www.makingitso.com/research.html
http://64.233.167.104/searchq=cache:5ARdHRAR2bMJ:www.spirit4greatness.co...