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.
Odrastel sem v Evropi in druga svetovna vojna me je zajela, ko sem bil star med sedem in deset let. Spoznal sem, kako je bilo le malo odraslih, ki sem jih poznal, sposobnih prenesti tragedije, ki jih je prinesla vojna, kako malo jih je lahko vzpostavilo dokaj normalno, zadovoljno, izpolnjeno, srečno življenje, potem ko so bile njihove zaposlitve, domovi in njihova varnost uničeni zaradi vojne. Zato me je začelo zanimati, kaj je tisto, kar vpliva na življenje, da ga je vredno živeti. Kot otrok, najstnik, sem poskušal brati filozofijo, vključeval sem se v umetnost in religijo ter veliko drugih načinov, prek katerih bi lahko prišel do odgovora na tisto vprašanje. In končno, sem po naključju spoznal psihologijo.
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.
Zgodilo se je na smučišču v Švici, brez denarja, da bi lahko dejansko užival, kajti sneg se je stopil in nisem imel denarja, da bi lahko šel v kino. Ampak spoznal sem -- v časopisu sem prebral članek o tem, da bo nekdo v nekem prostoru, ki sem ga videl v središču Züricha, imel predavanje in da bo govoril o letečih krožnikih. Mislil sem si, no, ker ne morem v kino, bom vsaj lahko brezplačno poslušal o letečih krožnikih. Moški, ki je govoril tisti večer, je bil zelo zanimiv. Namesto, da bi govoril o majhnih zelenih možeh, je govoril, kako je bila psiha Evropejcev travmatizirana zaradi vojne in kako projicirajo leteče krožnike na nebo. Govoril je, kako so bile Mandale v stari hindujski religiji nekako projicirane v nebo kot poskus ponovne pridobitve nekega smisla reda po vsem kaosu, ki ga je prinesla vojna. In to se mi je zdelo zelo zanimivo. Po predavanju sem začel brati njegove knjige. Šlo je za Carla Junga, čigar ime in dela nisem poznal.
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.
Nato sem prišel v to državo študirat psihologijo in poskušal razumeti poti do sreče. To je tipični rezultat, ki so ga predstavili mnogi ljudje, in obstajajo zelo različne variacije. Ampak ta na primer kaže, da okoli 30 % ljudi, ki so jih anketirali v ZDA od leta 1956, pravi, da živijo srečno življenje. In to se sploh ni spremenilo. Medtem ko se je v tem obdobju osebni zaslužek na lestvici, ki je konstantna zaradi izločitve vpliva inflacije, več kot podvojil, skoraj potrojil. V bistvu lahko najdemo enake rezultate, torej, da po določeni točki -- ki bolj ali manj odgovarja samo nekaj 1000 dolarjev nad minimalno mejo revščine -- višanje materialnega blagostanja ne vpliva na to, kako srečni so ljudje. Dejansko lahko ugotovimo, da pomanjkanje osnovnih virov pripomore k nesreči, ampak višek materialnih virov ne poviša sreče.
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.
Veliko mojih raziskav se je osredotočalo bolj -- potem ko sem spoznal, da se te ugotovitve dejansko skladajo z mojimi lastnimi ugotovitvami, sem poskušal razumeti: kje -- v vsakdanjem življenju, v naših normalnih izkušnjah -- se počutimo resnično srečne? Če začnem, v raziskavah pred 40 leti sem začel preučevati kreativne ljudi -- najprej umetnike in znanstvenike in tako naprej -- vse zato, da bi razumel, kaj jih je prepričalo v to, da posvetijo svoje življenje stvarem, od katerih povečini ni pričakovati ne slave ne bogastva, ampak delajo življenje smiselno in vredno 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.
To je bil eden izmed vodilnih ameriških skladateljev v sedemdesetih letih. Intervju je imel 40 strani. Ta kratek odlomek zelo dobro povzame, kar je povedal med intervjujem. Opisuje, kako se počuti, ko mu gre skladnja glasbe dobro od rok. To opiše kot ekstatično stanje.
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" v grščini pomeni preprosto stati ob robu nečesa. Sčasoma je postala analogija za mentalno stanje, ko se počutiš, da ne izvajaš neke vsakodnevne rutine. Ekstaza je v bistvu vstopanje v alternativno realnost. Zanimivo je, ko razmišljamo o civilizacijah, na katere gledamo kot na višek dosežkov človeštva -- naj je to Kitajska, Grčija, hindujska civilizacija, ali Maji ali Egipčani -- tisto, kar o njih poznamo, so njihove ekstaze, ne pa njihov vsakdan. Poznamo templje, ki so jih gradili, kamor so ljudje prihajali, da bi doživeli alternativno realnost. Poznamo cirkuse, arene, teatre. To so ostanki civilizacij in to so kraji, ki so jih ljudje obiskovali, da bi doživeli življenje v bolj koncentrirani, bolj organizirani obliki.
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.
Temu moškemu ni treba obiskati kraja, kot je ta arena, ki je zgrajena kot grški amfiteatri in je tudi kraj za ekstazo. Mi sodelujemo v realnosti, ki je drugačna od tiste, na katero smo navajeni. Ampak temu človeku ni treba iti tja. Potrebuje le kos papirja za zapisovanje not, in medtem ko to počne, si predstavlja zvoke, ki pred tem niso obstajali v tisti določeni kombinaciji. Ko torej doseže točko ustvarjanja, kot je Jennifer izvedla svojo improvizacijo, doseže novo realnost -- nov moment ekstaze -- vstopi v to drugačno realnost. Pravi, da je to tako intenzivna izkušnja, da se mu skoraj zdi, kot da ne bi obstajal. To zveni kot nekakšno romantično pretiravanje. A dejansko naš živčni sistem ne zmore procesirati več kot približno 110 bitov informacij na sekundo. Da me zdaj lahko slišite in razumete, morate procesirati okoli 60 bitov informacij na sekundo. Zato ne morete poslušati več kot dve osebi naenkrat. Nemogoče je razumeti več kot dve osebi, ki nam sočasno nekaj govorita.
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)
Ko smo resnično vpeti v tako intenziven proces ustvarjanja, kot je na primer ta moški, mu ne preostane dovolj pozornosti, da bi lahko spremljal, kako se počuti njegovo telo, ali razmišljal o problemih doma. Ne čuti niti lakote niti utrujenosti. Njegovo telo izgine, njegova identiteta izgine iz njegove zavesti, ker nima dovolj pozornosti -- kot nihče med nami, -- da bi dejansko dobro naredil nekaj, kar zahteva veliko koncentracije, in hkrati čutil, da obstaja. Obstoj je torej začasno prekinjen. Rekel je, da se je zdelo, kot da bi se njegova roka premikala sama. Jaz bi lahko strmel v svojo roko dva tedna in ne bi čutil nobenega občudovanja ali začudenja, ker pač ne znam komponirati.
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.
Iz intervjuja očitno vidimo, da ta avtomatični, spontani proces, ki ga opisuje, lahko doživi le nekdo, ki je zelo dobro natreniran in ki je razvil svojo tehniko. To je postala nekakšna splošno znana resnica v raziskovanju kreativnosti, da ne moreš ustvarjati z manj kot 10 leti poglobljenega tehničnega znanja na določenem področju. Naj bo matematika ali glasba, toliko časa je potrebno vložiti, zato da lahko nekaj spremeniš tako, da je boljše kot je bilo pred tem. Ko se to zgodi, pravi, glasba kar steče. Zato ker vsi ti ljudje, ki sem jih začel intervjuvati, ta intervju je več kot 30 let star, veliko med njimi jih je to opisalo kot spontani tok, vrsta izkušnje, ki sem jo poimenoval "izkušnja zanosa." Zgodi se na različnih ravneh.
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 primer pesnik ga opiše na tak način. To je delo mojega študenta, ki je intervjuval enega izmed najboljših ameriških pisateljev in pesnikov. Ponovno opisuje lahkoten, spontan občutek, ko vstopiš v to ekstatično stanje. Ta pesnik opiše občutek, kot da bi odprl v zraku lebdeča vrata -- zelo podoben opisu, kot ga je podal Albert Einstein, ko si je predstavljal relativnostne sile, ko je poskušal razumeti, kako deluje mehanizem, ki ga je preučeval. Ampak to se dogaja tudi pri drugih aktivnosti. Na primer, moja druga študentka, Susan Jackson iz Avstralije, ki je delala z nekaterimi vodilnimi atleti na svetu. Tu lahko vidite opis olimpijskega skejterja, v osnovi podoben opis fenomena notranjega stanja osebe. Si ne boste mislili; poteka avtomatsko, če se združiš z glasbo in tako naprej.
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.
Zgodi se tudi, kot sem zapisal v svoji zadnji knjigi z naslovom "Good Business", kjer sem intervjuval nekatere izvršne direktorje, ki so jih kolegi nominirali kot najbolj uspešne in hkrati zelo etične, družbeno odgovorne. Lahko vidite, da ti ljudje definirajo uspeh kot nekaj, kar pomaga drugim in hkrati pripomore k lastnemu občutku sreče, ko to počneš. Tako kot vsi ti uspešni in odgovorni izvršni direktorji, eno ne poteka brez drugega, ne moreš biti le uspešen, če želiš imeti smiselno in uspešno zaposlitev. Anita Roddick je ena zmed teh izvršnih direktorjev, ki smo jih intervjuvali. Je ustanoviteljica Body Shop-a, vodilne blagovne znamke naravne kozmetike. Gre za nekakšno strast, ko delaš najbolje, kar lahko in pri tem občutiš zanos.
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.
To je zanimiv krajši citat Masaru Ibuke, ki je v tistem času brez denarja ustanovil Sony, brez izdelka -- niso imeli izdelka, niso imeli nič drugega kot idejo. Njegova ideja je bila, da bi ustanovil delovna mesta za inženirje, kjer bi lahko občutili veselje ob tehnoloških inovacijah, ki bi se zavedali svojega poslanstva do družbe in bi jim bilo delo v užitek. Ne bi mogel podati boljšega primera, kako zanos vstopi v sfero dela in zaposlovanja.
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.
No, ko opravljamo raziskave -- z drugimi kolegi po svetu smo izvedli intervjuje z več kot 8000 ljudmi -- od Dominikanskih duhovnikov, do slepih nun, do gornikov po Himalaji, pastirjev iz Navaja, ki uživajo v svojem delu. Ne glede na kulturo, ne glede na izobrazbo ali kaj drugega, to je sedem pogojev, ki naj bi bili prisotni pri osebi, ki občuti zanos. Obstaja ta osredotočenost, ki postane tako intenzivna, da vodi do občutka ekstaze, občutka jasnosti; točno veš, kaj želiš doseči iz enega trenutka v drugega; dobiš takojšnjo povratno informacijo. Veš, da je tisto, kar moraš narediti, dosegljivo, čeprav je težko, in občutek za čas izgine, pozabiš nase, počutiš se kot del nečesa večjega. Ko so prisotni ti pogoji, to, kar počneš, postane vredno početja samo po sebi.
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.
V naših raziskavah predstavljamo vsakdanje življenje ljudi v tej enostavni shemi. To dejansko lahko merimo zelo natančno, saj damo ljudem elektronske pozivnike, ki se sprožijo desetkrat na dan in ko se to zgodi, navadno povejo, kaj počnejo, kako se počutijo, kje se nahajajo in o čem razmišljajo. Dve stvari, ki ju pri tem merimo, sta stopnja izziva, ki ga doživljajo ljudje v določenem trenutku in stopnja veščine, ki jo čutijo v tistem trenutku. Za vsako osebo lahko postavimo povprečje, ki je središče diagrama. To naj bi bila povprečna raven izziva in spretnosti neke osebe, ta pa se razlikuje od vsakega posameznika. Ampak imamo nekakšno izhodiščno točko, ki se nahaja v 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.
Če vemo, kakšna je ta izhodiščna točka, lahko precej natančno predvidimo, kdaj bo oseba v zanosu in to bo takrat, ko bo izziv višje od povprečja in veščine višje od povprečja. Lahko počnete stvari povsem drugače kot drugi ljudje, ampak za vsakega bo kanal zanosa, to področje tukaj, ko počne nekaj, v čemer resnično uživa -- igra klavir, je s svojim najboljšim prijateljem, morda na svojem delovnem mestu, če delo nudi občutek zanosa. Tako druga področja postanejo vse manj 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.
Vzburjenje je še vedno dobro, saj je oseba tu preokupirana. Vaše veščine niso tako dobre, kot bi morale biti, ampak lahko se pomaknemo v občutek zanosa enostavno z razvojem naših spretnosti. Vzburjenje je torej področje, v katerem se ljudje večinoma učijo, saj so v tem področju potisnjeni preko svoje cone udobja in da lahko vstopijo sem -- če se vrnemo na zanos -- morajo razviti boljše spretnosti. V območju kontrole je tudi dobro biti, saj se počutimo udobno, ampak nismo preveč navdušeni. Tu nam naloge ne predstavljajo izziva. Če želiš iz območja kontrole prestopiti v zanos, moraš povišati raven izziva. Ti dve sta idealni in komplementarni območji, iz katerih enostavno prestopimo v zanos.
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.
Ostale kombinacije izziva in spretnosti, postajajo progresivno manj optimalne. Sproščenost je v redu -- še vedno se počutiš OK. Dolgočasje postaja bolj odbijajoče in apatija postane zelo negativna: ne počutiš se, da bi počel kar koli, ne uporabljaš svojih sposobnosti, ne vidiš nikakršnega izziva. Žal veliko ljudi doživlja občutke apatije. Največji doprinos k tovrstni izkušnji je gledanje televizije; naslednje je sedenje v kopalnici. Čeprav je včasih gledanje televizije v približno sedem do osem odstotkov časa v zanosu, ampak to le v primeru, ko gledaš program, ki te zelo zanima in z gledanjem pridobiš povratno informacijo.
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.
Torej, vprašanje, ki ga poskušamo nasloviti -- in jaz sem šel že preko časa -- je, kako postaviti čim več vsakdanjega življenja v kanal zanosa. In to je izziv, ki ga poskušamo razumeti. Nekateri med vami znate to narediti spontano, brez svetovanja, ampak na žalost veliko ljudi tega ne zna. To je na nek način naša naloga.
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplavz)