

Release yourself to the church, to the state, to Apple Corporation. Or Flow. - zackattack
http://www.zacharyburt.com/2010/06/release-yourself-to-the-church-to-the-state-to-apple-corporation-or-flow/

======
lkozma
"In communist Russia, the ego goals might be to work in the factory in service
to the state. Unfortunately, this is a really shitty goal because it does not
provide opportunity for happiness."

I stopped reading here - it is a stupid generalization and a misunderstanding
of the Flow concept, of people in totalitarian regimes and of people in
general.

People living in communist Russia were not as naive to have as a personal goal
"service of the state", just as an employee in corporate America today doesn't
necessarily think of "maximizing shareholder value" the whole day (or whatever
is on the bullshit bingo du jour).

In fact, the idea of Csikszentmihalyi's flow is that resourceful people can
create/find meaningful activities pretty much regardless of the external
environment (above some threshold) which leads to a feeling of happiness.

From what I've heared and read, communist factories were often the hotbeds of
creative "hacking": given the nonsensical and weakly enforced rules, people
used whatever tools and material they had available to tinker and hack
together household items for their own use.

~~~
zackattack
>I stopped reading here - it is a stupid generalization and a misunderstanding
of the Flow concept

Got that bit from Mihaly himself, though it's possible I took it out of
context. I don't have my copy of the book with me right now but when I get
home I will give you some precise quotes. The idea is that intentions and
behavior are definitely shaped by the state.

>In fact, the idea of Csikszentmihalyi's flow is that resourceful people can
create/find meaningful activities pretty much regardless of the external
environment (above some threshold) which leads to a feeling of happiness.

Yes, and if you'd bother to read the article, you'd see that it mentioned
this.

~~~
lkozma
"Got that bit from Mihaly himself, though it's possible I took it out of
context."

I'm curious also about the context, I'd be ready to argue against M.Cs.
himself, if he really claimed that, but it would be strange, because one of
his main points is that better societal conditions, higher standard of living,
etc. don't make people that much happier overall, in fact you start the
article with this yourself.

"Yes, and if you'd bother to read the article, you'd see that it mentioned
this."

Sorry - didn't mean to sound negative. Yes, you give the example of the guy
addicted to programming, unable to move on to what he would want to do
instead. Incidentally a similar effect might be at work in totalitarian
regimes: people are addicted to the little games they have to play to get by
and are not motivated to change the system. Something like a Stockholm
syndrome on a larger scale. Just speculating here :)

------
goodside
Zack, don't take this wrong way, because you seemed pretty chill when we met
at the meetup a while back, but this post is not even remotely close to any
sort of coherent thought. It's unsubstantiated speculation, bad writing, and
worse yet it's linkbait. There's a line between informal flare and lunatic
raving, and its drawn somewhere in the vicinity of writing in all caps. This
isn't what people come to HN for, and I'm genuinely confused as to how it
ended up at #1. Sorry.

~~~
ScotterC
I quite enjoyed it. Maybe it's not HN material but it was a pleasant read and
spoke well to people who struggle to figure out what happiness is. Most people
at HN would probably agree that enjoyment would come from creating something.
I, being newer here, took longer to figure this out. I realize that for a long
while I was taking the wrong cues from society on how to draw enjoyment and
this article sums up a lot of what my struggle was with and drew the same
conclusions.

~~~
jpdbaugh
I also found this article to very relevant to modern life here in America. As
a young adult I am questioning things like this everyday and I am going to
read flow now.

------
mattmaroon
"The Apple marketing machine created a tribe, giving to the rise of superfans
whose identity/self-image hinges on being one of the first to own a new
product. I don’t know if it’s Apple you should really blame, though. You
should blame our culture for allowing the media to manipulate us, brainwashing
us, shaping the behavior to work jobs we hate so we can buy things so we can
be happy. Media conditioning plays on our innate drives, associating positive
possibilities (sex, social acceptance/popularity) with consumer products."

The media isn't some conspiratorial, Big Brother type industry out to make us
all unhappy. The image the media provides is simply the one we most readily
accept. The enemy is not the media, the enemy is us.

~~~
parallax7d
The enemy is always us.

But that's not the point, the point is that we are susceptible to
manipulation, and the media is doing it actively to shape us all into self-
destructive consumers.

~~~
mattmaroon
Again, who is the media? The media is us. They're not a race of aliens hell
bent on making humanity care about Kim Kardashian. They're people just like
you and me, who have a financial incentive to expose the stories you and I
want to hear/read.

The media doesn't shape us, we shape the media with our attention. CNN doesn't
derail their entire programming for a week every time a cute little white girl
gets abducted because they have some sort of agenda. They do it because if
they don't MSNBC will and we'll all watch that channel instead.

That's why I don't watch cable news. I'm more of an Economist kind of guy
which is also media, though diametrically opposed to much of the media in
philosphy.

Which is yet another reason the original argument is silly. All viewpoints do
exist in the media. The media collectively IS doing it's job of putting out a
wide variety of information and letting us choose, with our attention, which
we want to see. Sadly more people choose Fox News than the Economist. This
isn't the media's fault, it's ours.

------
SecretAgentMan
I thoroughly enjoyed the article and actually went to see if I could pick up a
copy of Flow. However when I got to Amazon and saw that the Kindle edition
(that I wanted) was $2 more than the print edition my experiences clashed with
my ego and I went to a torrent site.

------
Goosey
I have read Flow twice in the last few years and while I considered it an
important work that has shaped my perspective of personal psychology immensely
I never understood Flow on a logical level. For me the 'idea' of flow made
sense, but I wasn't able to follow the cause-and-effect that made it work.

In other words I accepted the correctness of Flow at a faith-based level
rather than at an logic-based level.

In these two sentences, Flow now 'clicks' for me at that logical level: "So
complete absorption leads to flow, that great feeling, because all your
resources are dedicated to it: the task is precisely challenging enough to
engage all of your resources, and nothing more. Since all of your resources
are engaged in the task at hand, you no longer feel self-conscious because
there’s no “bit” available to mull over your ego or self-image."

This post is not perfect and does contain a bit of speculative wandering, as
others have pointed out, but for finally making the circuits of my brain
comprehend Flow at a deeper level.. Thank You!

Don't stop writing.

------
enjo
Or, alternatively, folks just like the damn phone?

These discussions almost always begin with a (unsubstantiated) assumption that
material things are bad. That wanting material wealth is bad. It's the same
sort of argument used against hedonists. That satisfaction is only temporary
(which I would agree with), and therefore the pursuit of temporary
satisfaction is futile and eventually leaves you unfulfilled (which I don't
agree with). After all, the true hedonists I've known in my life rank as some
of the happiest folks I've met.

My point is simple. There are a lot of ways to be happy and a lot of ways to
be miserable. Standing in line for an iPhone may be one way that folks enjoy
life. They just really like the phone.

*note: I did not wait in line for an iPhone.

------
joubert
Last Sunday, I took the ferry with two buddies, to Sandy Hook. It is a 30-40
minute trip from the Wall Street pier and then you're on the beach.

Lying in the sun, having drinks, and occasionally venturing into the cold
Atlantic (I grew up spening my summers on beaches against he Indian Ocean),
for an entire day, was incredibly rejuvenating.

I wasn't thinking about tomorrow or yesterday. Lying on the beach (don't
forget sunscreen) has one of the most relaxing effects, and the best is it
lasts for one or two days afterwards.

So my suggestion would be, at least now that we have hot weather, go to the
beach every weekend and soak up the sun, have a beer/vodka or two, and chill.

------
wallflower
When I read the title for this, I was thinking that is was going to be talking
about how iDevices free up time for getting bogged down in technical details -
so you can create more, so you can get into the state of flow. But it wasn't
about that. I'm rereading it again. It's good to get your ideas on paper.

------
Bud
If nothing else, this is the most creative waste of three pages in an attempt
to bash Apple that I've seen lately.

And it's very little else. The whole section on "flow" reads like an excuse-
digression to distract from the real goal of the post.

~~~
jpdbaugh
It wasn't bashing Apple products. There is nothing wrong with them. It was
bashing peoples obsession with material goods and attempting to draw meaning
from them.

~~~
zackattack
Well, I'm trying to avoid bashing anything, and instead trying to articulate
my perspective on how things work.

Incidentally, I am writing this on a MacBook and have mostly great things to
say about my experiences with Apple (except that they were too aggressive in
trying to charge me $100+ for a new battery adapter when the cord of my old
one started to wear).

~~~
jpdbaugh
I am also using a Macbook Pro and I have an iPhone. I am more than happy with
both of them. There is just no way I would ever consider waiting in line for a
day for the iPhone 4. My 3gs can last until I can get conveniently get one.

------
mikecane
TL;DR version: The wrong self-expectations create disappointment and lead the
weak to substance or self-help book abuse.

Edited: Or to buying an iPhone.

