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.
Odrastao sam u Europi, a Drugi svjetski rat me zahvatio u dobi od moje sedme do 10. godine. Primijetio sam da se jako malo odraslih ljudi koje sam poznavao znalo nositi s ratnim tragedijama koje su ih obilježile -- i da je samo mali broj njih mogao uspostaviti nešto nalik normalnom, zadovoljavajućem ili sretnom životu sad kad su im posao, dom ili sigurnost uništeni u ratu. Tako me počelo zanimati što je to što čini naš život vrijednim življenja. Pokušao sam, kad sam bio dijete i mladić, čitati filozofiju i baviti se umjetnošću, religijom i ostalim stvarima koje sam smatrao mogućim odgovorima na svoje pitanje. Konačno sam dospio i do psihologije, i to slučajno.
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.
Bio sam u švicarskom skijalištu bez prebijene pare. Htio sam se provoditi, ali snijeg se otopio i nisam imao novca za odlazak u kino. No, otkrio sam da se na - Čitao sam u novinama da će netko održati prezentaciju na mjestu koje sam vidio u središtu Züricha, i da će tema biti leteći tanjuri. Pomislio sam da, kad već ne mogu u kino, barem mogu ići besplatno slušati o letećim tanjurima. Čovjek koji je govorio na tom večernjem predavanju bio je vrlo zanimljiv. Umjesto da priča o malim zelenima, on je pričao o tome kako je rat traumatizirao psihu Europljana i da zato sad viđaju leteće tanjure po nebu. Govorio je kako su mandale iz drevnog hinduizma na neki način projicirane na nebo u pokušaju da ljudi vrate barem dio osjećaja smisla i reda nakon ratnoga kaosa. To mi se učinilo jako zanimljivim i nakon predavanja sam počeo čitati njegove knjige. Bio je to Carl Jung, čije ime i djela nisam dotad uopće poznavao.
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.
Zatim sam došao ovamo studirati psihologiju i počeo sam raditi na razumijevanju izvora ljudske sreće. Ovdje je uobičajeni rezultat do kojega su došli brojni ljudi, i postoje mnoge njegove verzije. To, primjerice, pokazuje da oko 30 posto ljudi ispitanika u SAD-u od 1956. godine tvrde da su jako sretni. To se nimalo nije promijenilo. S druge strane, osobni dohodak, na skali koja je prilagođena da eliminira inflaciju, se više nego udvostručio, gotovo utrostručio, u istom razdoblju. Manje-više isti rezultati se ponavljaju, tj. potvrđuje se činjenica da nakon određene temeljne razine -- otprilike samo par tisuća dolara iznad razine siromaštva -- daljnje poboljšanje materijalnih uvjeta ne doprinosi našem osjećaju sreće. U biti, nedostatak osnovnih sredstava, materijalnih sredstava, doprinosi osjećaju nesreće, ali povećanje materijalnih sredstava ne povećava sreću.
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.
Svoje istraživanje sam usmjerio na -- nakon što sam otkrio da se ovi rezultati slažu s mojim iskustvom, pokušao sam shvatiti: -- u svakodnevnom životu, u našem normalnom iskustvu -- kada se osjećamo doista sretnima? Na početku tih istraživanja prije 40-ak godina, počeo sam proučavati kreativne ljude -- najprije umjetnike i znanstvenike, i druge -- pokušavajući razumjeti što im to daje osjećaj da je vrijedno provesti život u aktivnostima za koje velik broj njih ne očekuje ni slavu, ni bogatstvo, ali koje im čine život smislenim i vrijedne su truda.
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.
Ovo je jedan od vodećih skladatelja američke glazbe u 70-im godinama. Razgovor je 40 stranica dug. Ali ovaj mali dio je vrlo dobar sažetak onoga što je govorio u intervjuu. Opisuje kako se osjeća kad mu skladanje dobro ide. I opisuje ga kao stanje ekstaze.
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.
"Ekstaza" u grčkom označava jednostavno stajanje pokraj nečega. S vremenom je postalo sinonim za mentalno stanje u kojem osjećaš da se ne baviš svojim uobičajenim dnevnim zadacima. Dakle, ekstaza je u biti ulazak u alternativnu stvarnost. Kad malo promisliš, zanimljivo je da kad mislimo na civilizacije kojima se divimo zbog toga što su bile vrhunac ljudskog postignuća -- Kina, Grčka, Indija, ili Maje, ili Egipćani -- ono što o njima znamo zapravo je znanje o njihovim ekstazama, ne o njihovoj svakodnevici. Znamo za hramove koje su izgradili, mjesta gdje su ljudi mogli iskusiti drugačiju stvarnost. Poznajemo njihove trgove, arene, kazališta. To su ostaci civilizacija i mjesta na koja su ljudi odlazili kako bi osjetili život u sažetijem, sređenijem obliku.
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.
Ovaj čovjek ne mora ići na mjesto poput ovog našeg, koje je također -- ovo mjesto, ova arena, izgrađena u obliku grčkog amfiteatra, -- također mjesto ekstaze. Mi smo dio stvarnosti koja je drugačija od svakodnevice na koju smo navikli. Ali ovaj čovjek ne treba ići tamo. On treba samo komad papira na koji će upisati male znakove, i dok to čini, može zamišljati zvukove koji ranije nisu postojali u toj kombinaciji. I jednom kad dođe do točke početka stvaranja, kao što je to napravila Jennifer u svojoj improvizaciji, jednoj novoj stvarnosti --- to je trenutak ekstaze --- on ulazi u to stanje drugačije stvarnosti. Kaže da je to stanje toliko intenzivno, da se čini gotovo kao da on sam u tom trenutku više ne postoji. To zvuči kao neko romantično pretjerivanje. Ali zapravo, naš živčani sustav ne može preraditi više od 110 bita informacije u sekundi. Recimo, kako biste čuli i razumjeli ono što govorim, trebate preraditi oko 60 bita u sekundi. Zbog toga ne možete čuti više od dvoje ljudi. Ne možete razumjeti više od dvoje ljudi koji vam pričaju.
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)
A kad ste stvarno potpuno uvučeni u potpuno obuzimajući proces stvaranja nečeg novog, kao što je to ovaj čovjek, njemu ne preostaje više dovoljno pažnje za promatranje kako se osjeća njegovo tijelo, ili koji su njegovi problemi kod kuće. Ne može niti osjetiti je li gladan ili umoran. Njegovo tijelo nestaje, njegov identitet nestaje iz njegove svijesti, jer nema dovoljno pažnje, kao ni bilo tko od nas, da stvarno odradi dobro nešto što zahtijeva puno koncentracije, i da istovremeno osjeća da on sam postoji. I tako je postojanje privremeno na čekanju. On kaže da se čini kako mu ruka sama radi. Ja bih mogao gledati u svoju ruku dva tjedna, i svejedno ne bih osjetio nikakvo čudo ili zapanjenost, jer ne znam skladati. (Smijeh)
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.
To vam govori da je jasno kako se ovaj automatski, spontani proces koji opisuje može dogoditi samo nekome tko je vrlo dobro uvježban i ima razvijenu tehniku. U proučavanju kreativnosti na neki se način podrazumijeva da ne možeš biti stvaratelj bez barem 10 godina tehničko-spoznajne udubljenosti u specifično područje. Bez obzira na to je li riječ o matematici ili glazbi, treba toliko vremena da biste mogli početi mijenjati nešto na način da postane bolje nego je bilo prije. Kad se to dogodi, on kaže da glazba sama poteče. Zbog svih ovih ljudi koje sam počeo intervjuirati -- ovo je intervju star 30 godina -- i mnogi od ispitanih ljudi opisali su to kao spontani tok (flow), ja sam to iskustvo nazvao "iskustvom očaravajuće obuzetosti". Ono se događa u raznim slučajevima.
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.
Na primjer, pjesnik ga opisuje ovako. Ovo kaže moj student koji je intervjuirao neke od vodećih pisaca i pjesnika u SAD-u. Svi opisi spominju isti spontani osjećaj bez napora koji se pojavljuje kad uđeš u stanje ekstaze. Ovaj pjesnik ga opisuje kao otvaranje vrata koja plutaju na nebu -- osjećaj sličan onome koji je opisao Albert Einstein kad je zamišljao sile relativiteta, dok se mučio pokušavajući razumjeti kako on djeluje. Ali taj osjećaj se događa i za vrijeme drugih aktivnosti. Primjerice, druga moja studentica, Susan Jackson iz Australije, napravila je rad s nekima od najboljih sportaša na svijetu. Ovdje vidite u opisu olimpijske klizačice, isti temeljni opis fenomena unutarnjeg stanja osobe. Ne razmišljaš; sve teče automatski, ako se spojiš sa glazbom, i tako dalje.
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.
To se događa, također, kao što sam napisao u svojoj najnovijoj knjizi, "Good Business", u kojoj sam intervjuirao neke od direktora koje njihovi kolege smatraju vrlo uspješnima i etičnima, vrlo socijalno osjetljivima... Vidite da ti ljudi definiraju uspjeh kao nešto što pomaže drugima, a istovremeno te čini sretnim dok se time baviš. Kao što svi ti uspješni i odgovorni direktori kažu, ne možeš imati samo jednu od tih stvari da bi bio uspješan, ako želiš smislen i uspješan posao. Anita Roddick je jedna od direktorica s kojima smo razgovarali, osnivačica je Body Shopa, diva u području prirodne kozmetike. To je svojevrsna strast koja proizlazi iz činjenice da daješ sve od sebe i osjećaš obuzetost dok radiš.
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.
Ovo je zanimljiv citat Masarua Ibuke, koji u vrijeme kad je osnivao Sony nije imao ni novca, ni proizvoda --- nisu imali nijedan proizvod, ništa, ali su imali ideju. A ideja je bila da uspostave radna mjesta na kojima će inžinjeri moći osjetiti radost tehnološke inovacije, gdje će biti svjesni svoje uloge u društvu i raditi za vlastito zadovoljstvo. Ne mogu dati bolji primjer za prikaz kako obuzetost funkcionira na radnom mjestu.
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.
Kad provodimo istraživanja -- s drugim kolegama diljem svijeta razgovarali smo s više od 8,000 ljudi -- od dominikanskih redovnika, slijepih opatica, planinara po Himalaji, do pastira iz plemena Navajo --- koji uživaju u svom poslu, i neovisno o kulturi, obrazovanju ili bilo čemu drugom, pokazalo se da postoji sedam uvjeta koji se čine bitnim za obuzetog čovjeka. Postoji usredotočenost (1) koja, jednom kad postane snažna, vodi u stanje ekstaze (2), stanje jasnoće (3), znaš točno što želiš raditi iz trenutka u trenutak: dobivaš trenutačnu povratnu informaciju. Znaš da je ono što trebaš napraviti moguće, iako je teško (4), osjećaj vremena nestaje (6), zaboravljaš na sebe, osjećaš kao da si dio nečega većeg (5). I jednom kad se steknu uvjeti, ono što radiš postaje nagrada sama za sebe (7).
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.
U našim istraživanjima, svakodnevni život prikazujemo kroz jednostavnu shemu. I zapravo sve možemo vrlo precizno izmjeriti, jer ljudima dajemo elektroničke pagere koji zazvone 10 puta dnevno, i na svaki taj alarm ljudi kažu što rade i kako se osjećaju, gdje su i o čemu razmišljaju. Dvije stvari koje mjerimo su: količina izazova kojega ljudi doživljavaju u tom trenutku, te razvijenost vještina koje oni misle da imaju u tom trenutku. Dakle, za svaku osobu možemo izračunati prosjek, koji je središte slike. To je čovjekova srednja razina izazova i vještine, koji je različita od bilo čije druge. Ali ovdje je neka vrsta ishodišta, koja bi bila u sredini.
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.
Ako znamo kakva je ta točka, možemo prilično točno predvidjeti kada će nastupiti obuzetost, a to će biti kada su izazovi veći od prosjeka i kad su vještine više od prosjeka. Možete raditi stvari vrlo različito od drugih ljudi, ali za svakoga će se taj ulazak u obuzetost, ovo područje ovdje, dogoditi kad radite ono što stvarno želite raditi -- svirati klavir, biti sa svojim najboljim prijateljem, možda raditi, ako je rad ono što vam omogućuje obuzetost. Ova druga područja postaju sve manje i manje pozitivna.
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.
Uzbuđenje je još uvijek dobro područje, jer ste tamo pred velikim izazovima. Iako vam vještine nisu dovoljno razvijene, ali možete ući u obuzetost prilično lako malim dodatnim razvojem svojih vještina. Dakle, uzbuđenost je područje u kojem većina ljudi uči, jer su tu izvan svoje zone udobnosti a da bi ušli ovamo -- vratili se u obuzetost -- trebaju razviti bolje vještine. Kontrola je također dobro mjesto, zato što se osjećate ugodno, ali ne i vrlo uzbuđeno. To više nije jako zahtjevno. A ako želite ući u obuzetost iz kontrole, morate povećati izazove. Dakle, to su dva su idealna i komplementarna područja iz kojih je lako ući u obuzetost.
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.
Druge kombinacije izazova i vještine postaju sve manje optimalne. Opuštenost je u redu -- još uvijek se osjećate OK. Dosada počinje biti vrlo odbojna, a apatija postaje vrlo negativna: ne osjećate da radite bilo što, ne koristite svoje vještine, nema izazova. Nažalost, puno ljudskog iskustva spada u apatiju. Najveći pojedinačni doprinos tom iskustvu je gledanje televizije; sljedeći je sjedenje u kupaonici. Iako smo ponekad za vrijeme gledanja televizije oko sedam do osam posto vremena u obuzetosti, ali to je kad odaberemo program koji zaista želimo gledati i kad dobijemo povratnu informaciju od njega.
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.
Dakle, pitanje koje pokušavamo riješiti -- a ja sam prekoračio vrijeme -- je kako smjestiti što više svakodnevnog života u područje obuzetosti. To je izazov koji pokušavamo razumjeti. Neki od vas očito znaju kako se to radi, spontano i bez savjeta, ali nažalost puno ljudi to ne zna. A to je na neki način naša dužnost.
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)