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 Evropi i u vreme Drugog svetskog rata imao sam izmedju 7 i 10 godina. Primetio sam kako je veoma mali broj odraslih oko mene uspeo da izdrži tragedije koje im je rat doneo, kako je veoma mali broj njih uspeo da održi koliko toliko normalan, ispunjavajući, srećan život, nakon što su im domovi, posao i sigurnost uništeni ratom. Tako sam počeo da tragam za onim što čini život vrednim življenja. Još kao dete, kao tinejdžer, čitao sam filozofiju, isprobao se u umetnosti, religiji i mnoštvu drugih stvari, za koje sam mislio da mogu odgovoriti na to pitanje. Na kraju sam, sasvim slučajno, otkrio psihologiju.
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.
Zapravo, u to vreme sam bio u ski centru, u Švajcarskoj, i nisam imao dovoljno novca da priuštim sebi malo zabave, jer sneg se otopio i... ... nisam imao dovoljno novca da odem u bioskop, ali sam čuo... ... pročitao sam u novinama da će neki čovek održati predavanje u jednoj sali, u centru Ciriha, na kojem će se govoriti o letećim tanjirima. I pomislio sam, kad već ne mogu da odem u bioskop, barem mogu da odem da, za džabe, slušam o letećim tanjirima. Čovek koji je držao predavanje te večeri je bio veoma zanimljiv. I... u stvari, umesto da priča o ''malim zelenim'', pričao je o tome kako su Evropljani u stvari traumirani ratom i kako, pod uticajem tih trauma, projektuju i tako viđaju leteće tanjire, nešto kao... ... govorio je o tome kako ljudi, u stvari, projektuju hinduističke mandale na nebo, kako bi uspeli da barem nekako unesu malo smisla i reda u život, nakon haosa koji su pretrpeli za vreme rata. I bilo mi je veoma zanimljivo to što je govorio, pa sam počeo da čitam njegove knjige nakon tog predavanja. Taj čovek, o čijem radu i idejama tada nisam imao pojma, bio je, zapravo, Karl Jung.
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.
Nakon toga sam se doselio u Ameriku, počeo da studiram psihologiju i nastavio sa pokušajima da razumem odakle sreća potiče. Ovo su rezultati ispitivanja, naravno ono što je većina ljudi odgovorila i postoji više ovakvih primera sa raznim varijacijama. Ali ovo, na primer, pokazuje da otprilike 30 procenata od ljudi ispitivanih u SAD, od 1956. tvrdi da vodi srećan život. I taj podatak se nije menjao. Iako su se od tada lična primanja, koja su uzeta u obzir kao konstantna skala, sa uračunatim dejstvom inflacije, udvostručila, čak i utrostručila. Još uvek, dakle, nailazimo na iste rezultate, naime, da nakon prelaska određene tačke, koja odgovara više - manje zaradi od samo par hiljada dolara iznad granice siromaštva, povećanje materijalnog blagostanja ne utiče značajno na to koliko su ljudi srećni. U stvari, uvek ćemo uočiti da nedostatak osnovnih, materijalnih resursa, utiče na osećaj nezadovoljstva, ali sa druge strane, povećanje materijalnih resursa ne utiče na veći osećaj zadovoljstva.
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.
S toga je moje istraživanje više skoncentrisano na... ... nakon što sam otkrio stvari koje su se stvarno poklopile sa mojim iskustvom, pokušao sam da shvatim šta u stvari doprinosi tome da se, tokom svakodnevnog, normalnog života, osećamo stvarno zadovoljnim, stvarno srećnim. I kako bih konačno odgovorio na to pitanje... u tim studijama, od pre 40 godina, tražio sam kreativne ljude, umetnike, naučnike i druge... trudeći se da razumem šta ih je to tačno ubedilo da je baš to čime se bave vredno ulaganja, zašto se bave nečim od čega, u većini slučajeva, ne očekuju slavu ili bogatstvo, a opet imaju osećaj da rade nešto značajno, i u tome vide smisao svog života.
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.
Ovaj čovek je bio jedan od vodećih kompozitora, u davnim 70 - im, i intervju sa njim je stao na 40 strana. Ovo ovde je samo mali siže koji, opet, veoma lepo prikazuje suštinu onoga što je rekao tokom tog intervjua, gde je opisano tačno kako se oseća kada komponovanje ide kako treba. Ovo stanje on opisuje 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.
U antičkoj Grčkoj ovaj izraz je označavao čistu posvećenost nečemu, opredeljenje za nešto, dok se danas koristi da opiše mentalno stanje u kojem se čovek oseća oslobođenim svakodnevne rutine. Ekstaza zapravo predstavlja doživljaj drugačije, nove realnosti. Veoma je zanimljivo, ako se osvrnemo na civilizacije koje doživljavamo kao odgovorne za razvoj čovečanstva i na koje se ugledamo, bilo da je to Kina, Grčka, Indija, Maje ili Egipćani.... videćemo da ono što znamo o njima jesu zapravo njihova stanja ekstaze, pre nego svakodnevni život. Znamo puno o njihovim hramovima, gde ljudi i danas mogu otići kako bi osetili trunku te drugačije realnosti. Upoznati smo sa cirkusima, arenama, pozorištima... sa svim onim mestima na koje su ljudi odlazili kako bi osetili život u smislenijoj, sređenijoj formi.
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 kompozitor o kome sam pričao malo pre, nema potrebu za odlaskom na ovakva mesta... ... i ovo mesto, ova sala u kojoj smo sada, koja je napravljena po ugledu na grčke amfiteatre, takođe je mesto na kom se može osetiti ekstaza. Trenutno učestvujemo u realnosti koja odskače od one na koju smo navikli u svakodnevnom životu. Ali ovom čoveku to nije potrebno. Sve što mu treba jeste parče papira, na koji može upisati male oznake i dok to radi, on zamišlja zvukove koji do tada nisu ni postojali. Taj momenat u kome on počinje da stvara tu novu realnost, kao što je Dženifer uradila u svojoj improvizaciji, to je momenat ekstaze. On se upušta u tu novu realnost i taj osećaj opisuje kao toliko intenzivan da skoro kao da ima osećaj da ne postoji. To mi zvuči malčice kao romantično preterivanje, ali zapravo, naš nervni sistem nije u stanju da obradi više od 110 delića informacija u sekundi. Trenutno vam je potrebno da obradite otprilike 60 delića u sekundi kako bi ste razumeli ovo što govorim. Zato, recimo, ne možete slušati više od dvoje ljudi u isto vreme, ne možete razumeti šta više od dvoje ljudi u isto vreme govori.
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)
S obzirom na to, kada se nalazite u ovakvom stanju apsolutne posvećenosti stvaranju nečega novog, kao ovaj čovek, ne ostaje vam dovoljno pažnje da pratite osećaje u sopstvenom telu ili da razmišljate o problemima kod kuće. U ovom stanju on neće osetiti ni da je gladan ili umoran, njegovo telo nestaje, njegov identitet se povlači iz svesti, jer u tom momentu on, kao i bilo ko od nas, nema dovoljno kapaciteta da radi nešto toliko zahtevno, kao što je komponovanje i da u isto vreme oseća da postoji. U tom momentu, postojanje je privremeno skrajnuto. On tvrdi i da ima osećaj kao da mu se ruka kreće sama. Sad, ja bih mogao da posmatram svoju ruku nedeljama i ne bih doživeo nikakvo slično čudo, jer ja ne umem da komponujem.
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.
Dakle, šta nam to u stvari govori, u ostatku intervjua vidimo da je ovo što on opisuje očito automatski, spontani proces, koji se može dogoditi samo osobi koja je dobro uvežbana i koja je razvila određene tehnike. Čak su i studije kreativnosti usvojile mišljenje da ne možete stvoriti ništa bez najmanje 10 godina vežbanja i sticanja tehničkog znanja iz te oblasti. Bilo da je u pitanju matematika ili muzika - potebno je toliko vremena da bi ste bili sposobni da promenite nešto u toj oblasti, tako da bude bolje nego što je bilo pre. Ovaj kompozitor kaže da, kada zapadne u ovo stanje, kaže da muzika samo ističe iz njega. Svi ljudi koje sam intervjuisao- - ovo je intervju star preko 30 godina - su opisali ova stanja kao spontano proticanje i zato ovu vrstu iskustva nazivam ''iskustvom proticanja''. Ono se odvija na različitim nivoima.
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 to opisuje ovako... Ovo su intervjui koje je radio jedan moj student sa vodećim piscima i pesnicima u SAD-u. U njima su opisana ta spontana osećanja koja se javljaju u stanjima ekstaze. Jedan od pesnika opisuje to kao otvaranje vrata koja lebde u vazduhu - - opis sličan onome koji je dao Albert Ajnštajn kada je opisivao kako je zamišljao sile relativiteta, dok se borio da shvati kako funkcionišu. Slično se dešava i u drugim aktivnostima. Ovo je primer rada jednog mog drugog studenta, Suzane Džekson, iz Australije, koja je radila sa vodećim svetskim sportistima. Možete videti da opis koji je dao klizač Olimpijskog ranga sadrži iste elemente ovog fenomena koji se odigrava unutar svih ovih osoba. U tom momentu ne mislite o tome da li se to dešava automatski već se stopite sa muzikom... 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 takođe dešava i u situacijama koje sam opisao u svojoj poslednjoj knjizi, ''Dobar Posao'', u kojoj se nalaze intervjui sa nekim od korporativnih direktora koji su bili nagrađeni u isto vreme za uspeh u poslu i etičnost i socijalnu odgovornost. Ovde vidite da ljudi definišu uspeh kao nešto što može pomoći drugima i u isto vreme usrećiti i vas. I kao što kažu svi gore navedeni direktori ne možete biti zadovoljni i uspešni ako imate samo jedan od ovih kvaliteta. Ako želite uspešan i smislen posao... Anita Rodik je jedna od direktora koje sam intervjuisao. Ona je osnivač Bodi Šopa, prodavnice kozmetike, koja dominira u toj sferi. Ovo je vrsta strasti koja proizlazi iz toga da dajete sve od sebe u poslu i pri tom doživljavate očaravajuću obuzetost.
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 Masaru Ibukua, koji je u to vreme osnivao Sony, počevši od nule, tada još nisu imali nikakav proizvod, nisu imali ništa, osim ideje. Ta njegova ideja je bila da osnuje mesto na kome će inženjeri moći da uživaju u tehnološkim novinama, da imaju misiju ka društvu i da u isto vreme rade posao koji vole. Ne mogu navesti bolji primer toga kako se "flow" javlja u radnom okruženju.
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.
Kada izvodimo studije, a do sada smo, sa kolegama širom sveta, sproveli preko 8,000 intervjua - počev od dominikanskih sveštenika, preko slepih monahinja, himalajanskih planinara, do Navaho pastira - sve sa ljudima koji uživaju u svom poslu. Bez obzira na kulturu, na obrazovanje ili bilo koji drugi faktor, postoji sedam faza koje se uvek javljaju dok je osoba u stanju "flow-a." Prvi je osećaj fokusa, koji postaje intenzivniji i vodi ka osećaju ekstaze, osećaju jasnoće - u tom momentu osoba tačno zna šta treba da radi i odmah dobija povratnu informaciju. Osoba tada tačno zna da je to što treba da uradi i moguće uraditi, iako se čini teško, i osećaj za vreme nestaje, zaboravljate na sebe i osećate se delom nečega mnogo većeg. U takvom stanju, postaje jasno da je to što radite samo po sebi vredno truda.
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 studijama prikazujemo svakodnevni život ljudi ovakvim šemama. I ova merenja su veoma precizna, jer svim tim ljudima dajemo pejdžere koji se aktiviraju 10 puta na dan, i svaki taj put, osoba treba da nas izvesti o tome šta radi, kako se oseća u tom trenutku, gde se nalazi, o čemu razmišlja. Tada obraćamo pažnju na dve stvari - na količinu izazova koje doživljavaju u tim momentima i na količinu sposobnosti koju u tom trenutku osećaju da imaju. Tako za svaku osobu možemo izvući lični prosek, koji se nalazi u centru dijagrama. I predstavlja, dakle, prosečan nivo izazova i sposobnosti koji je svojstven samo toj osobi. Takođe, svaka osoba ima određenu središnju tačku,
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.
i ako tu središnju tačku možemo pronaći, možemo tačno predvideti kada će osoba biti u stanju "flow-a", a to će se uvek desiti kada su njene sposobnosti i izazovi viši od prosečnih. Čak iako određena osoba radi stvari mnogo drugačije od drugih, kod nje, kao kod svih ostalih, "flow" će se javiti onda kada rade nešto što stvarno vole- sviranje klavira, provođenje vremena sa prijateljem, ponekad čak i posao, ako je to ono što kod osobe pobuđuje "flow". Tada ostale stvari postaju sve manje bitne.
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.
Stanje uzbuđenja je intenzivno, zato što je izazov velik. Veštine ovde nisu na nivou na kom bi trebale biti, ali možete postići "flow" veoma lako, unapređivanjem tih veština. Polje uzbuđenja je ono u kome većina ljudi stiče znanje, jer u tom polju bivaju gurnuti van granica komfora i tako, vraćajući se u stanja "flow-a", razvijaju svoje veštine. Stanje kontrole je isto tako dobro, jer se tu osećate komotno, bez preteranih uzbuđenja. Tu nema izazova. I ako hoćete da postignete "flow" iz stanja kontrole samo treba da povećate izazove. Dakle, ova dva polja su idealna za lako postizanje "flow-a".
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 izazova i veština gube na optimalnosti vremenom. Odmaranje je dobro - tada se osećate prijatno. Dosada brzo budi averziju, a apatija ima veoma negativno dejstvo - tada nemate osećaj da radite bilo šta, ne koristite svoje sposobnosti i nemate nikakvih izazova. Na žalost, dosta ljudskog iskustva se vezuje za apatiju. Najčešće takvo iskustvo je gledanje televizije, ili čak boravak u kupatilu. Iako 7 - 8 posto vremena provedenog u gledanju televizije jeste zapravo stanje "flow-a", on se neće desiti ako ne gledate kanal koji stvarno želite i od koga dobijate ono što vam treba.
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 pokušavam da postavim - a već sam prekoračio vreme- jeste kako da sve više i više svakodnevnih stvari postavimo tako da vode u "flow". Pronaći odgovor na to predstavlja veliki izazov za nas. Neki od vas verovatno znaju kako da to spontano postignu, bez ikakvog saveta, ali na žalost dosta ljudi to ne ume. Naš zadatak je, stoga da pomognemo tim ljudima. Ok.
Thank you.
Hvala na pažnji.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)