Jeg voksede op i Europa og blev fanget af 2. verdenskrig, da jeg var mellem 7 og 10 år gammel. Og jeg indså, hvor få af de voksne jeg kendte, der kunne klare de tragedier, som krigen havde påført dem. Hvor få af dem der var i stand til at genoptage et velfungerende og lykkeligt liv efter at have mistet deres job, hjem og sikkerhed pga. krigen. Jeg blev derfor interesseret i at forstå, hvad der er medvirkende til at gøre et liv værd at leve. Og jeg forsøgte som teenager at læse filosofi og give mig i kast med kunst, religion og mange andre ting, som jeg kunne se som mulige svar på mit spørgsmål. Til sidst endte jeg med at støde ind i psykologi ved et tilfælde.
I grew up in Europe, and World War II caught me when I was between seven and 10 years old. And I realized how few of the grown-ups that I knew were able to withstand the tragedies that the war visited on them -- how few of them could even resemble a normal, contented, satisfied, happy life once their job, their home, their security was destroyed by the war. So I became interested in understanding what contributed to a life that was worth living. And I tried, as a child, as a teenager, to read philosophy and to get involved in art and religion and many other ways that I could see as a possible answer to that question. And finally I ended up encountering psychology by chance.
Jeg var i et skisportssted i Schweiz uden penge til at have det sjovt for, fordi sneen var smeltet og jeg havde ingen penge til at gå i biografen for. Jeg læste i avisen, at der ville være en forelæsning et sted jeg havde set i centrum af Zûrich. og det ville handle om flyvende tallerkner. Og jeg tænkte at eftersom jeg ikke kan gå i biografen, så kan jeg i det mindste komme til gratis at høre om flyvende tallerkner. Og den mand der talte til aftenens forelæsning var meget interessant. I stedet for at snakke om små grønne mænd, snakkede han om, hvordan europæernes psyke var blevet traumatiserede af krigen og nu forestillede de sig så flyvende tallerkner oppe i himlen. Han snakkede om hvordan Mandalaer fra den gamle Hinduistiske religion blev projiceret op på himlen i et forsøg på at genoprette orden efter kaos fra krige. Og dette vakte min interesse. Jeg startede med at læse hans bøger efter den forelæsning. Og det var Carl Jung, hvis navn eller arbejde jeg intet kendte til.
I was at a ski resort in Switzerland without any money to actually enjoy myself, because the snow had melted and I didn't have money to go to a movie. But I found that on the -- I read in the newspapers that there was to be a presentation by someone in a place that I'd seen in the center of Zurich, and it was about flying saucers [that] he was going to talk. And I thought, well, since I can't go to the movies, at least I will go for free to listen to flying saucers. And the man who talked at that evening lecture was very interesting. Instead of talking about little green men, he talked about how the psyche of the Europeans had been traumatized by the war, and now they're projecting flying saucers into the sky. He talked about how the mandalas of ancient Hindu religion were kind of projected into the sky as an attempt to regain some sense of order after the chaos of war. And this seemed very interesting to me. And I started reading his books after that lecture. And that was Carl Jung, whose name or work I had no idea about.
Så kom jeg her til landet for at studere psykologi og jeg startede med at prøve at forstå grundene til lykke. Dette er et typisk resultat som mange har præsenteret og der er mange variationer af det. Men dette viser f.eks., at omkring 30 procent af de adspurgte amerikanere siden 1956 har sagt, at deres liv er meget lykkeligt. Og det har ikke ændret sig. Hvorimod den personlige indkomst, på en konstant skala, der er korrigeret for inflation, er mere end fordobledes, næsten tredoblet i den periode. Men man vil finde nærmest de samme resultater, nemlig at at efter et særligt punkt - der svarer nogenlunde til bare et par tusinde dollars over fattigdomsgrænsen - så ser en forøgelse i vores materielle velstand ikke ud til at have nogen påvirkning på, hvor lykkelige folk er. Man kan påvise, at manglen på basale ressourcer bidrager til følelsen af ulykkelighed, men en forøgelse af materielle ressourcer øger ikke lykken.
Then I came to this country to study psychology and I started trying to understand the roots of happiness. This is a typical result that many people have presented, and there are many variations on it. But this, for instance, shows that about 30 percent of the people surveyed in the United States since 1956 say that their life is very happy. And that hasn't changed at all. Whereas the personal income, on a scale that has been held constant to accommodate for inflation, has more than doubled, almost tripled, in that period. But you find essentially the same results, namely, that after a certain basic point -- which corresponds more or less to just a few 1,000 dollars above the minimum poverty level -- increases in material well-being don't seem to affect how happy people are. In fact, you can find that the lack of basic resources, material resources, contributes to unhappiness, but the increase in material resources does not increase happiness.
Derfor har min forskning været mere fokuseret på, efter jeg fandt ud af, at denne sammenhæng passede med min egen erfaring, at forstå det følgende: hvor, i vores dagligdag, i vores normale liv føler vi os rigtigt lykkelige. Som start på de studier for 40 år siden, begyndte jeg at undersøge kreative mennesker, først kunstnere, så forskere osv. for at prøve at forstå, hvad der fik dem til at føle, at det var værd at bruge deres liv på at gøre ting som mange af dem ikke forventede hverken rigdom eller berømmelse for, men som gjorde at deres liv gav mening og var værd at udføre.
So my research has been focused more on -- after finding out these things that actually corresponded to my own experience, I tried to understand: where -- in everyday life, in our normal experience -- do we feel really happy? And to start those studies about 40 years ago, I began to look at creative people -- first artists and scientists, and so forth -- trying to understand what made them feel that it was worth essentially spending their life doing things for which many of them didn't expect either fame or fortune, but which made their life meaningful and worth doing.
Det her var en de førende komponister i amerikansk musik tilbage i 70erne. Og interviewet var 40 sider langt. Men dette lille udklip er en god opsummering af, hvad han sagde under interviewet. Og det beskriver hvordan han har det, når det går godt med at komponere. Og han beskrev det som et ekstatisk stadie.
This was one of the leading composers of American music back in the '70s. And the interview was 40 pages long. But this little excerpt is a very good summary of what he was saying during the interview. And it describes how he feels when composing is going well. And he says by describing it as an ecstatic state.
Ekstase på græsk betyder at stå ved siden af noget. Og har siden hen nærmest været ensbetydende med en mental tilstand, hvor man føler, man ikke laver ens dagligdags-rutiner. Ekstase kan derfor betragtes som at træde ind i en alternativ virkelighed. Og det er interessant, hvis man tænker over det, når vi tænker på de civilisationer, som vi ser op til som foregangsmænd for den menneskelige udvikling, hvad enten det er den kinesiske, græske eller den hinduistiske civilisation eller mayaerne eller egypterne - det vi kender til dem, er deres ekstaser og ikke deres daglige liv. Vi kender de templer de byggede, hvor folk kunne komme og opleve en anderledes virkelighed. Vi kender deres cirkus, arenaer og teatre. Dette er resterne af af civilisationer og det er de steder, som folk tog hen, for at opleve livet i en mere koncentreret, en mere ordnet form.
Now, "ecstasy" in Greek meant simply to stand to the side of something. And then it became essentially an analogy for a mental state where you feel that you are not doing your ordinary everyday routines. So ecstasy is essentially a stepping into an alternative reality. And it's interesting, if you think about it, how, when we think about the civilizations that we look up to as having been pinnacles of human achievement -- whether it's China, Greece, the Hindu civilization, or the Mayas, or Egyptians -- what we know about them is really about their ecstasies, not about their everyday life. We know the temples they built, where people could come to experience a different reality. We know about the circuses, the arenas, the theaters. These are the remains of civilizations and they are the places that people went to experience life in a more concentrated, more ordered form.
Denne mand har ikke behov for at gå sådan et sted hen - det her sted, denne arena, der er bygget som et græsk amfiteater, det er også et sted for ekstase. Vi deltager i en virkelighed, der er forskellig fra den dagligdag vi er vant til. Men denne mand har ikke brug for at gå sådan et sted hen. Han har bare behov for et stykke papir, hvor han kan nedfælde nogle små tegn og når han gør det, kan han forestille sig lyde, der ikke før har eksisteret i den særlige kombination. Når han når til den tilstand, hvor han begynder at kreere, som Jennifer gjorde i hendes improvisation, vil en ny virkelighed, dvs. et øjebliks ekstase - så vil han træde ind i den nye virkelighed. Han siger også, at dette er en så intens oplevelse, at det nærmest føles som om han ikke eksisterede. Og det lyder lidt som en romantisk overdrivelse. Men i virkeligheden er vores nervesystem ikke i stand til at behandle mere end 110 bits information per sekund. For at I kan høre og forstå hvad jeg siger, kræver det 60 bit per sekund. Det er derfor man ikke kan høre på mere end to personer. Man kan ikke forstå mere end to personer der taler til en.
Now, this man doesn't need to go to a place like this, which is also -- this place, this arena, which is built like a Greek amphitheatre, is a place for ecstasy also. We are participating in a reality that is different from that of the everyday life that we're used to. But this man doesn't need to go there. He needs just a piece of paper where he can put down little marks, and as he does that, he can imagine sounds that had not existed before in that particular combination. So once he gets to that point of beginning to create, like Jennifer did in her improvisation, a new reality -- that is, a moment of ecstasy -- he enters that different reality. Now he says also that this is so intense an experience that it feels almost as if he didn't exist. And that sounds like a kind of a romantic exaggeration. But actually, our nervous system is incapable of processing more than about 110 bits of information per second. And in order to hear me and understand what I'm saying, you need to process about 60 bits per second. That's why you can't hear more than two people. You can't understand more than two people talking to you.
Så, når man er dybt involveret i denne meget krævende proces, som det at skabe noget nyt, som denne mand er, så har han ikke nok opmærksomhed til overs til at registrere, hvordan hans krop har det, eller hans problemer derhjemme. Han kan ikke engang føle, at han er sulten eller træt. Hans krop forsvinder, hans identitet forsvinder fra hans bevidsthed, fordi han har ikke nok opmærksomhed, som ingen af os har, til at udføre noget ordentligt, der kræver meget koncentration og på samme tid registrere, at han eksisterer. Så eksistensen er midlertidig suspenderet. Og han siger, at hans hånd bevæger sig af sig selv. Jeg kunne kigge på min hånd i to uger og ville ikke føle noget fantastisk, fordi jeg ikke kan komponere.
Well, when you are really involved in this completely engaging process of creating something new, as this man is, he doesn't have enough attention left over to monitor how his body feels, or his problems at home. He can't feel even that he's hungry or tired. His body disappears, his identity disappears from his consciousness, because he doesn't have enough attention, like none of us do, to really do well something that requires a lot of concentration, and at the same time to feel that he exists. So existence is temporarily suspended. And he says that his hand seems to be moving by itself. Now, I could look at my hand for two weeks, and I wouldn't feel any awe or wonder, because I can't compose. (Laughter)
Så hvad det fortæller os her er, at denne spontane automatiske proces, som han omtaler, kun kan forekomme hos en, der er meget trænet og har en veludviklet teknik Og det er blevet en form for sandhed i undersøgelser af kreativitet, at man ikke kan skabe noget med mindre end ti års fordybelse indenfor dette særlige felt. Hvad enten det er matematik eller musik, så tager det så lang tid, før man er i stand til at ændre noget til det bedre, end hvad det var. Når det sker, siger han at musikken flyder automatisk. Og fordi mange af de personer jeg begyndte at interviewe - dette er et interview, der er over 30 år gammelt - så mange personer beskrev det som et spontant flow, at jeg opkaldte denne for for oplevelse for "oplevelsen af flow". Og det forekommer indenfor forskellige områder.
So what it's telling you here is that obviously this automatic, spontaneous process that he's describing can only happen to someone who is very well trained and who has developed technique. And it has become a kind of a truism in the study of creativity that you can't be creating anything with less than 10 years of technical-knowledge immersion in a particular field. Whether it's mathematics or music, it takes that long to be able to begin to change something in a way that it's better than what was there before. Now, when that happens, he says the music just flows out. And because all of these people I started interviewing -- this was an interview which is over 30 years old -- so many of the people described this as a spontaneous flow that I called this type of experience the "flow experience." And it happens in different realms.
F.eks. beskriver en digter det på den måde. Det her er fra en af mine studenter, der har interviewet nogle af de førende forfattere og digtere i USA. Og her beskrives den samme lette spontane følelse man opnår, når man indtræder i den ekstatiske tilstand. Denne digter beskriver det som at åbne en dør der svæver i himlen - en meget lignende beskrivelse gav Albert Einstein på hvordan, han forestillede sig relativitetsteorien, når han kæmpede med at prøve at forstå, hvordan den virkede. Men det sker også indenfor andre aktiviteter. Dette er f.eks. en anden af mine studerende, Susan Jackson fra Australien, der arbejdede med nogen af verdens førende atleter. Og i ser her en beskrivelse fra en olympisk skøjteløber, den stort set samme beskrivelse af fænomenologien af den indre tilstand hos en person. Man tænker ikke; det sker automatisk, hvis man smelter sammen med musikken osv.
For instance, a poet describes it in this form. This is by a student of mine who interviewed some of the leading writers and poets in the United States. And it describes the same effortless, spontaneous feeling that you get when you enter into this ecstatic state. This poet describes it as opening a door that floats in the sky -- a very similar description to what Albert Einstein gave as to how he imagined the forces of relativity, when he was struggling with trying to understand how it worked. But it happens in other activities. For instance, this is another student of mine, Susan Jackson from Australia, who did work with some of the leading athletes in the world. And you see here in this description of an Olympic skater, the same essential description of the phenomenology of the inner state of the person. You don't think; it goes automatically, if you merge yourself with the music, and so forth.
Det sker også i den bog jeg skrev for nyligt der hedder "Good Business", hvor jeg interviewede nogle direktører, der var blevet nomineret af deres kollegaer for at være både meget succesfulde, og meget etiske, meget socialt ansvarlige. Man kan se, at disse folk definerer succes som noget, der hjælper andre og på samme tid får en til at være glad, når man arbejder med det. Og som alle disse succesfulde og ansvarlige direktører siger, så kan man ikke kun have en af de ting og være succesfuld, hvis man vil have et meningsfyldt og succesfuldt job. Anita Roddick er en anden af de direktører som vi interviewede. Hun er grundlæggeren af Body Shop, kongen af naturlig kosmetik. Det er en slags passion, der kommer af at gøre sit bedste og opleve flow mens man arbejder.
It happens also, actually, in the most recent book I wrote, called "Good Business," where I interviewed some of the CEOs who had been nominated by their peers as being both very successful and very ethical, very socially responsible. You see that these people define success as something that helps others and at the same time makes you feel happy as you are working at it. And like all of these successful and responsible CEOs say, you can't have just one of these things be successful if you want a meaningful and successful job. Anita Roddick is another one of these CEOs we interviewed. She is the founder of Body Shop, the natural cosmetics king. It's kind of a passion that comes from doing the best and having flow while you're working.
Dette er er et interessant lille citat fra Masaru Ibuka, som på den tid startede Sony uden nogen penge, uden et produkt - de havde ikke noget produkt, de havde ingenting, men de havde en ide. Og den idé han havde var at etablere en arbejdsplads, hvor ingeniører kan opnå glæden ved teknologisk innovation, være opmærksom på deres mission i forhold til samfundet og arbejde til deres egen tilfredsstillelse. Jeg kunne ikke selv komme med et bedre eksempel på, hvordan "flow" optræder på en arbejdsplads.
This is an interesting little quote from Masaru Ibuka, who was at that time starting out Sony without any money, without a product -- they didn't have a product, they didn't have anything, but they had an idea. And the idea he had was to establish a place of work where engineers can feel the joy of technological innovation, be aware of their mission to society and work to their heart's content. I couldn't improve on this as a good example of how flow enters the workplace.
Når vi laver undersøgelser - vi har sammen med kollegaer rundt om i verden, foretaget over 8.000 interviews med personer - fra dominikanske munke, til blinde nonner, til himalaya-bjergbestigere, til Navajo-hyrder - der nyder deres arbejde. Og uanset kulturen, uanset uddannelse eller noget andet, så er der disse syv betingelser, der er til stede, når en person har følelsen af flow. Der er dette fokus, der når det bliver intenst, fører til en form for ekstase, en form for klarsyn: man ved præcis hvad man vil gøre fra det ene øjeblik til det næste; man får øjeblikkelig feedback. Man ved, at det man skal gøre er muligt at gøre, selvom det er svært, og fornemmelsen for tid forsvinder, man glemmer sig selv, man føler sig som en del af noget større. Og når disse betingelser er til stede, så bliver det man laver værd at gøre for dets egen skyld.
Now, when we do studies -- we have, with other colleagues around the world, done over 8,000 interviews of people -- from Dominican monks, to blind nuns, to Himalayan climbers, to Navajo shepherds -- who enjoy their work. And regardless of the culture, regardless of education or whatever, there are these seven conditions that seem to be there when a person is in flow. There's this focus that, once it becomes intense, leads to a sense of ecstasy, a sense of clarity: you know exactly what you want to do from one moment to the other; you get immediate feedback. You know that what you need to do is possible to do, even though difficult, and sense of time disappears, you forget yourself, you feel part of something larger. And once the conditions are present, what you are doing becomes worth doing for its own sake.
I vores studier kan vi vise folks dagligdag ud fra dette simple skema. Og vi kan faktisk måle dette ganske præcist, fordi vi giver folk elektroniske personsøgere, der går i gang ti gange om dagen, og når de går i gang, så fortæller man, hvad man laver, hvordan man har det, hvor man er og hvad man tænker på. To ting som vi måler er opfattelsen af udfordringens størrelse i det øjeblik og den påkrævede mængde evner, som de føler de besidder i det øjeblik. Så for hver person kan vi fastsætte et gennemsnit, der udgør midten af diagrammet. Det vil være ens gennemsnitlige udfordringer og evner, der vil være forskellige fra alle andres. Men man har et udgangspunkt her, der vil være i midten.
In our studies, we represent the everyday life of people in this simple scheme. And we can measure this very precisely, actually, because we give people electronic pagers that go off 10 times a day, and whenever they go off you say what you're doing, how you feel, where you are, what you're thinking about. And two things that we measure is the amount of challenge people experience at that moment and the amount of skill that they feel they have at that moment. So for each person we can establish an average, which is the center of the diagram. That would be your mean level of challenge and skill, which will be different from that of anybody else. But you have a kind of a set point there, which would be in the middle.
Hvis vi ved hvad det udgangspunkt er, kan vi med med nogenlunde nøjagtighed forudsige, hvornår man vil opleve flow og det er når udfordringerne er større end gennemsnittet og evnerne er større end gennemsnittet. Og du gør måske tingene meget forskellige i forhold til andre, men for alle mennesker så vil den flow-kanal, det område her, forekomme, når man foretager sig noget man virkelig godt kan lide at lave - spille klaver, være sammen med ens bedste ven, muligvis arbejde, hvis arbejde er det, der giver en flow. Og de andre områder bliver mindre og mindre positive.
If we know what that set point is, we can predict fairly accurately when you will be in flow, and it will be when your challenges are higher than average and skills are higher than average. And you may be doing things very differently from other people, but for everyone that flow channel, that area there, will be when you are doing what you really like to do -- play the piano, be with your best friend, perhaps work, if work is what provides flow for you. And then the other areas become less and less positive.
Ophidselse er stadigvæk godt, fordi man er overudfordret her. Ens evner er ikke helt så høje som de burde være, men man kan opleve flow ganske nemt ved bare at udvikle sine evner lidt. Ophidselse er således det område, hvor de fleste mennesker lærer noget, fordi det er her, hvor de er skubbet ud af deres komfort-zone og for at komme tilbage i den - for at komme i flow - er de nødt til at udvikle bedre evner. Kontrol er også et godt sted at være, fordi her føles det komfortabelt, men ikke specielt spændende. Det er ikke længere særligt udfordrende. Og hvis man vil opnå flow fra kontrol, er man nødt til at øge udfordringerne. Så de her to områder er ideelle og komplementære, hvorfra man let kan opnå flow.
Arousal is still good because you are over-challenged there. Your skills are not quite as high as they should be, but you can move into flow fairly easily by just developing a little more skill. So, arousal is the area where most people learn from, because that's where they're pushed beyond their comfort zone and to enter that -- going back to flow -- then they develop higher skills. Control is also a good place to be, because there you feel comfortable, but not very excited. It's not very challenging any more. And if you want to enter flow from control, you have to increase the challenges. So those two are ideal and complementary areas from which flow is easy to go into.
De andre kombinationer af udfordring og evner bliver mindre og mindre optimale. Afslapning er godt - her har man det fint. Kedsomhed begynder at blive generende. og apati bliver meget negativt: man føler ikke man foretager sig noget, man benytter ikke sine evner, der er ingen udfordring. Uheldigvis oplever mange mennesker apati. Den største enkeltstående bidragsyder til den oplevelse er at se TV, den næste er at sidde på badeværelse. Selvom det at se TV i syv til otte procent af tiden er i flow, men det er, når man vælger at se et program, som man virkelig ønsker at se og man får noget ud af.
The other combinations of challenge and skill become progressively less optimal. Relaxation is fine -- you still feel OK. Boredom begins to be very aversive and apathy becomes very negative: you don't feel that you're doing anything, you don't use your skills, there's no challenge. Unfortunately, a lot of people's experience is in apathy. The largest single contributor to that experience is watching television; the next one is being in the bathroom, sitting. Even though sometimes watching television about seven to eight percent of the time is in flow, but that's when you choose a program you really want to watch and you get feedback from it.
Så det spørgsmål, som vi forsøger at finde svar på er - og jeg er for længst gået over tiden - hvordan man kan gøre mere af hverdagen til en oplevelse af flow. Og det er den udfordring som vi forsøger at forstå. Og nogle af jer ved selvsagt, hvordan man gør det spontant uden nogen former for råd, men desværre er det for mange ikke tilfældet. Og det er dette, der på en måde er vores opgave.
So the question we are trying to address -- and I'm way over time -- is how to put more and more of everyday life in that flow channel. And that is the kind of challenge that we're trying to understand. And some of you obviously know how to do that spontaneously without any advice, but unfortunately a lot of people don't. And that's what our mandate is, in a way, to do.
Mange tak
Thank you.
(Klapsalver)
(Applause)