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| Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi | |
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a psychologist "who showed how everyone from artists to assembly-line workers can be transported to a state of focused contentment by getting caught in the 'flow,' a term he coined and later popularized," died October 20, the New York Times reported. He was 87. Csikszentmihalyi "was a polymath whose passions for painting, chess playing and rock climbing informed his work on subjects as diverse as the teenage brain and the psychology of interior design."
It was his research into creativity and focus, however, that became his life's work and made him a public figure after the publication of his 1990 book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. The concept subsequently became a part of popular and political culture. The Times noted that Dallas Cowboys football coach Jimmy Johnson cited Csikszentmihalyi's work "as a critical piece in his preparation for the team's victory in the 1993 Super Bowl. He even held up a copy of the book during a postgame interview."
Other public figures who praised the book included Newt Gingrich, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, who once boasted that half his cabinet was reading it. A 2004 TED Talk by Csikszentmihalyi has been viewed nearly seven million times.
Flow, he argued, was a state of mind, a level of concentration in which outside stimuli, even time itself, seem to fall away. But flow, he added, cannot be forced. "People seem to concentrate best when the demands on them are a bit greater than usual, and they are able to give more than usual," he said in an interview with the Times in 1986. "If there is too little demand on them, people are bored. If there is too much for them to handle, they get anxious. Flow occurs in that delicate zone between boredom and anxiety."
"Laurie Santos, a professor of psychology at Yale, said Csikszentmihalyi "was such a leader in our field it's hard to do his contributions justice. I think in a world where it's become harder and harder to focus, his work on flow has become even more important."
Csikszentmihalyi wrote a series of follow-up books to Flow, including one focused on the business world, and "while he never claimed to know the secret to happiness, he never passed up a chance to offer advice for those looking for it," the Times noted.