Flow - The art of losing yourself

Hermeticus

"In positive psychology, a flow state, also known colloquially as being in the zone, is the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by the complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting transformation in one's sense of time."

- Wikipedia, the Bible of the common googling person

I've considered this when thinking about happiness. Generally, I think we can differentiate between two kinds of happiness:

There is the one that is based on an immediate stimulation. Instant gratification. The fleeting kind of happiness when you satisfy a craving. I don't see this as real happiness. Rather, it's the short breathed relief of the pressure that desire creates within us.

Then there is the second kind of happiness, one that is ought to last a while longer. I think a better way to describe this is "peace". All that is required for life is given, while desire is laid aside. It is not a craving for something more but the enjoyment of what is.

It's important to note that desire can lead to peace and peace can lead to desire - but they can not be at the same time. Desire is a force that brings turmoil into peace. It disrupts peace. It may well be that the deepest meaning of peace simply is an absence of desire. One may argue: "But what if suffering comes to me from an outside force? What if it's not my own desire but someone else that gives me grief?" It's simple: This too is desire. The desire to live (in peace), clinging to the self. With no desire, even the most gruesome death is peaceful.

If something as basic as the desire to live in peace can be considered a factor that disturbs our peace - our happiness - then it begs the question if there is any peace to be found at all. This is where "Flow" comes into the game because this answer too is simple: Rather than desiring not to desire, the way to be free from desire is to forget about it.

So if we engage in something that absorbs us, if in the moment we forget our identity, our cravings and needs, we forget desire and find peace. When we talk about flow, it's often in connection with sports - and it is true - if we completely lose ourself in the sport, there is no worry, no pain. If you ever experienced this yourself you might understand when I say those moments of flow feel like ecstasy. They are pure joy, leaving us somewhat bitterly sober once the feeling recedes - often creating that very desire to feel this sensation again.

It's not just sport though. I have noticed that this principle seemingly applies to all kinds of situation that are considered to give us joy beyond material happiness.

Take love: It's another way to lose your identity. Couples strive for unity. The unspoken aim of many is to dissolve their sense of individual self in this overwhelming emotion they call love. "I need you to complete me" is another way of saying "I need you, so I may forget myself." In the same vein, parents may claim that the greatest joy in life is becoming a parent. Here too, they forget a part of their identity in caring for their offspring.

The same applies to groups in general. Social interactions are a prime source for happiness and there are varying degrees of group identity. It goes from hanging out with your friends and doing nothing other than enjoying each others company - to an extreme extend where the individual is completely absorbed in group identity and once again this ecstatic feeling kicks in. This is so powerful that it led to the worst crimes in history. From Charles Manson to Hitler & Co - the advocates of them became so lost on an individual level that they collectively disregarded the monstrous nature of their actions.

There is the absorption in an activity - which is the case of sport. Whatever hobby you may pursue, whatever activity you engage in, you'll be happy as long as it manages to completely take away your attention from you and your desire.

And of course, last but not least we even have religions that incorporate the principle of losing yourself. We're talking about Buddhism and the likes of course, the very promise being: Surrender your desire and you will be rid of suffering. Gurus proclaim their state is a state of pure joy. Nirvana is just that: The "blowing out" of my own identity, the loss of the self.

Buddhist teaching also illustrates why even though this is a rather simple concept in theory, it does not work out for most people. There is a reason why an individual who seeks enlightenment ought to leave his home, get a teacher and live as a monk. You get to leave your usual environment, which supports the act of forgetting the life that you led, the person you are and the habits and desires you have. Then once you have renounced what you have it's time for practice - and practice is the only way - because remember, the desire to not desire disturbs peace.

Hence the idea is to forget desire through the act of practice, the practice here being meditation. This too has a good reason. The world is engaging and it's actually quite easy to lose yourself for a moment or two. The Buddhists on the other hand sit in silence doing nothing precisely because of this. If they are able to forget themselves when the world is not engaging, they are able to forget themselves at any time.

That then is the difference between student and master and why many of the examples I have given work in theory but not so well in practice. Love for instance may help us forget ourselves for a few good moments but the problem arises once we fall out of this peculiar kind of flow, when we remember ourself again. The desire to experience the sensation again is what prevents us from experiencing it. The master simply is in a perpetual state of flow, so deeply embedded in his doing that he permanently forgets every notion of desire.

Hermeticus

And since I already mentioned ecstasy - drugs, especially the psychedelic kind, follow much of the same recipe. In fact, those who have some experience with them may testify that drugs have the capability of evoking the most intense levels of both joy and loss of self. Not for nothing are many individuals who follow a "spiritual path" fond of drugs. And not for nothing do these eastern religion have their origin in a bunch of poets who had a tendency to get high on Soma.

Rituals, the practical part of religion seem to share that function to. Engaging in a shared activity like that may even present two opportunities at once: The absorption in the activity itself as well as the absorption in group identity.

Down The Rabbit Hole

↪Hermeticus

The flow is experienced in sports and video games when the task is not too easy or too difficult. I guess the concentration in trying to achieve something just outside our grasp keeps our mind off of our sadness and worries.

Rstotalloss

The problem is not to loose yourself. You must be yourself. Like that you just are. Without kosing, without the need to find or reinvent. There is then no other you, the played one, to care about.

jgill

The flow state was popularized by an old acquaintance of mine, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. In the sport of rock climbing it can be a delightful experience as long as difficulties remain mild as felt by the climber.

Jack Cummins

↪Hermeticus

I remember being told as a teenager that we need to lose ourselves to find ourselves, which seemed like empty rhetoric. I felt that the person who told me this, who was a pastoral counselor, was really saying that we need to get lost and eventually conform. I am open to philosophies of meditation but do query the idea of losing oneself because ego strength, as opposed to fragility, may be necessary in the upside down world in which we live.

Tom Storm

I remember being told as a teenager that we need to lose ourselves to find ourselves, which seemed like empty rhetoric. — Jack Cummins

The way I've generally heard this was that you need to lose any current preconceptions of yourself in order to find your true self. I think it holds up reasonably well as cod wisdom. Personal development starts with a shake up and the need for a fresh start. Certainly this would describe some ways of looking at therapies like DBT or Narrative Therapy.

DMcpearson

I remember being told as a teenager that we need to lose ourselves to find ourselves — Jack Cummins

If you just stay yourself there is nothing to loose or to be found. If you were somebody else first, then yes.

Joshs

↪Tom Storm

From George Kelly, 1962:

“A good deal is said these days about being oneself. It is supposed to be healthy to be oneself. While it is a little hard for me to understand how one could be anything else, I suppose what is meant is that one should not strive to become anything other than what he is. This strikes me as a very dull way of living; in fact, I would be inclined to argue that all of us would be better off if we set out to be something other than what we are. Well, I'm not so sure we would all be better off – perhaps it would be more accurate to say life would be a lot more interesting.

There is another meaning that might be attached to this admonition to be oneself; that one should not try to disguise himself. I suspect this comes nearer to what psychologists mean when they urge people to be themselves. It is presumed that the person who faces the world barefaced is more spontaneous, that he expresses himself more fully, and that he has a better chance of developing all his resources if he assumes no disguises.

But this doctrine of psychological nakedness in human affairs, so much talked about today and which allows the self neither make-up nor costume, leaves very little to the imagination. Nor does it invite one to be venturesome.

What I am saying is that it is not so much what man is that counts as it is what he ventures to make of himself. To make the leap he must do more than disclose himself; he must risk a certain amount of confusion. Then, as soon as he does catch a glimpse of a different kind of life, he needs to find some way of overcoming the paralyzing moment of threat, for this is the instant when he wonders what he really is – whether he is what he just was or is what he is about to be. It may be helpful at this point to ask ourselves a question about children at Halloween. Is the little youngster who comes to your door on the night of October 30th, all dressed up in his costume and behind a mask, piping "trick or treat, trick or treat" – is that youngster disguising himself or is he revealing himself? Is he failing to be spontaneous? Is he not being himself?”

Jack Cummins

↪Tom Storm

What I found was that it comes down to what is considered to be the 'true' self which may emerge when one loses oneself, or the false self. How much is about authenticity? I don't believe that it is clear because there is the aspect of searching, but we don't live in isolation and how we reconstruct the 'lost self' is within the context of variable social structures, which may be helpful or detrimental psychologically. For some people, the whole process of being lost and finding oneself may be a complex journey, with many ups and downs.

Tom Storm

↪Jack Cummins

What I can say for certain is that people hold versions of who they think they are based on stories and interpretations which often do not resemble them at all. My experience suggest that people build identities based on very slender foundations and the 'self' which predominates is an erroneous often problematic projection that can readily be disposed of with courage and practice.

DMcpearson

While it is a little hard for me to understand how one could be anything else, — Joshs

Most people play a role. Of course you are always your body and brain and your surrounding. There is ine physical you. That goes without saying. Losing the role playing lets the real you come out.

Tom Storm

There is another meaning that might be attached to this admonition to be oneself; that one should not try to disguise himself. I suspect this comes nearer to what psychologists mean when they urge people to be themselves. — Joshs

:up: Nice one Joshs

Joshs

↪DMcpearson

Losing the role playing lets the real you come out. — DMcpearson

Aren’t the different roles I play with the other people in my life part of the real ‘me’. Arent I changed by each interaction with others? Doesn’t a different side of me come out when I am with my dog or my kid or my wife?

DMcpearson

Aren’t the different roles I play with the other people in my life part of the real ‘me’. Arent I changed by each interaction with others — Joshs

If you feel that the roles are you then yes.

jgill

Losing yourself in a flow state doesn't mean shifting to another "self". It means becoming part of the process without one's ego. That's a problem with philosophy, which involves thinking rather than doing.

Jeunesocrate

Losing yourself in a flow state doesn't mean shifting to another "self". It means becoming part of the process without one's ego. That's a problem with philosophy, which involves thinking rather than doing. — jgill

:ok:

apokrisis

What I found was that it comes down to what is considered to be the 'true' self which may emerge when one loses oneself, or the false self. How much is about authenticity? — Jack Cummins

The flow state is neurological, so about the level of selfhood that is below a linguistic and socially-constructed sense of self.

Our brains are designed to predict our worlds - or indeed, predict the effect of our behaviour on the world. And we do that by a mix of habit and attention. Over time, we learn to deal with almost everything at the level of efficient and unthinking automaticism. But we also always encounter aspects of the world that are novel or surprising and must interrupt our automatic reactions to stop and think things through in a broader attentional fashion.

So a flow experience is what it is like to be handling a very complex world with surprising ease. We are lost in the moment in the sense that we hit the tennis ball, write the essay, or climb the mountain with uninterrupted skill. There is no sense of being paused or blocked or actually lost - as in being separated from the world that we intend to master through our actions. We are one with the world, psychologically speaking,

Then a social sense of “being a self in the (social) world” is another level of habit and attention. We can be in the flow of that too - seamlessly one with our sociocultural environment in a way that feels skilful and uninterrupted by doubts or second guessing.

But generally, social interactions are much more challenging and attention demanding. Well, at least in the high paced and fragmented modern social setting. So much more can go wrong. You can’t relax and just be yourself - be some highly automated and skilful collection of social habits - as that in itself is socially construed as “just presenting a facile mask”.

The “real you” in modern society is the attentional one, not the habitual one. The thinking and self-questioning one, not the one lost in the simple unexamined flow of everyday social relations.

This is what makes the concept of flow so surprising and elusive.

Our real neurological selves are constructed to have skilful flow. We are built to automate every useful action to the point it becomes effortless and unthinking. We can drive cars, open cans, tie shoelaces, with uninterrupted simplicity.

And yet when it comes to modern culture - founded on the demand of paying attention to our every action so that we become the ideal of the self-regulating individual - suddenly just being in the flow is not enough. We have to be continually accountable in a way that opposes flow itself.

Flow is about the authenticity of the self which is a lifetime’s accumulation of sturdy habit. But the modern version of the authentic self is the one which ends up constantly interrupting itself with the attention-demanding question - the existential riddle of: “Am I behaving authentically?” :smile:

TheMadFool

Sorry, couldn't read the OP in full - it's too long and I have ADHD.

Addressing the title "The Art Of Losing Yourself" if it's true to the gist of the OP, I'd say it's impossible to be engage in cognition and metacognition at the same time unless the cognition is itself metacognition. I can't, for instance, think about, say, a math problem (cognition) and simultaneously be self-aware (metacognition). This then must be, what the OP is about - to be so absorbed in a task that one loses one's (sense of) self.

Do not disturb my circles. — Archimedes (just before a roman soldier slew him)

It shows, in a crude way, that our brains aren't, unlike computers, capable of parallel processing. :chin: Well, at least not in the sense the OP seems to be about (cognition & metacognition). Why, I wonder?

apokrisis

It shows, in a crude way, that our brains aren't, unlike computers, capable of parallel processing — TheMadFool

Or rather, that our brains “process” by predicting the general flow of the world and its events, and then revert to particular attentional focus to the degree their ingrained habits of prediction need interrupting and updating.

The whole world is imagined as it is shortly about to be. Then we tidy up any small bits we might have got wrong.

TheMadFool

Or rather, that our brains “process” by predicting the general flow of the world and its events, and then revert to particular attentional focus to the degree their ingrained habits of prediction need interrupting and updating.

The whole world is imagined as it is shortly about to be. Then we tidy up any small bits we might have got wrong — apokrisis

You mean to say that most of the time, there's background activity going on in our brains, stuff we aren't conscious of but occasionally, there are times this is interrupted as when we have to update the status of the world and ourselves. Sounds reasonable.

I want to run something by you if you don't mind...

I tried this rather simple experiment on myself. I can carry out the physical activity of smoking (I'm a chain smoker) while I cogitate on the issue at hand but I cannot think of a problem in biology and, at the same time, find an answer to a mathematical question. The cerebellum (motor activity) and cerebrum (ratiocination) seem to be able to function in tandem but the cerebrum itself isn't capable of handling more than one task at a time.

apokrisis

I can carry out the physical activity of smoking (I'm a chain smoker) while I cogitate on the issue at hand but I cannot think of a problem in biology and, at the same time, find an answer to a mathematical question. — TheMadFool

With enough practice, one might learn. Some folk can add up a column of figures almost by glancing. So you might master the mathematical task to the level of a habitual unthinking skill, leaving capacity to work on the biology problem.

But it gets more complex of course. If you have a genuinely novel problem to solve, you need to add the skill of “looking away”. You need to switch from a left brain attentional style that narrows expectations down to a predictable kind of correct answer, to a right brain peripheral attentional style that is open to unexpected mental connections.

So there is narrow concentration versus wide eyed vigilance as complementary modes of higher level attentional processes.

TheMadFool

With enough practice, one might learn. Some folk can add up a column of figures almost by glancing. So you might master the mathematical task to the level of a habitual unthinking skill, leaving capacity to work on the biology problem.

But it gets more complex of course. If you have a genuinely novel problem to solve, you need to add the skill of “looking away”. You need to switch from a left brain attentional style that narrows expectations down to a predictable kind of correct answer, to a right brain peripheral attentional style that is open to unexpected mental connections.

So there is narrow concentration versus wide eyed vigilance as complementary modes of higher level attentional processes. — apokrisis

:up:

Insight

An insight that manifests itself suddenly, such as understanding how to solve a difficult problem, is sometimes called by the German word Aha-Erlebnis. The term was coined by the German psychologist and theoretical linguist Karl Bühler. It is also known as an epiphany, eureka moment or (for cross word solvers) the penny dropping moment (PDM) — Wikipedia

Eureka! — Archimedes (as he ran naked through the streets of Syracuse)

However, Archimedes was bathing, not thinking.

Come to think of it, my humble laptop can play music as it displays a PDF document for my reading pleasure. My brain, however, can't attend to both the music and the PDF. One has to go!

Hermeticus

I think apokrisis does a great job at describing my observation and raises a very important point in the discussion about "finding yourself" vs "losing yourself".

The “real you” in modern society is the attentional one, not the habitual one. The thinking and self-questioning one, not the one lost in the simple unexamined flow of everyday social relations. — apokrisis

It's also been pointed out that most people play a role, that there are different versions of who people think they are. Carl Jung describes this as persona - the psychological mask we wear that allows us to hold an identity of our own. In fact, we have a good few of those masks - perhaps even one for each individual social interaction we partake in. We may hold a general idea of "who we are" but we're prone to adapt to any given social situation. Interestingly we go so far that we do parts of this subconsciously - which I'd say belongs to the realm of Flow - like how we mimick body language or change the pitch in our tone accordingly etc.

Now, I don't think this is phony. Some people do indeed act "fake" but generally, the act of being flexible in our behaviour and self-perception is as much "real" self as anything else. I think what's more interesting here is why something like a persona exists in the first place. Why, quite naturally without anyone telling us to do so, did we deem it necessary to construct this self-image of ourselves?

It appears to me as if the greater parts of the persona are given from the outside rather than the inside. Our first touch of identity is when we are given a name by our parents. We go on to learn about the world we live in. Our society then proceeds to teach us not just how we're ought to see the world (morals and ethics) but also how we're ought to act (get a job, earn some money, raise a family). It goes on and on and on. We categorize ourselves with attributes that society defined for us, even if they don't really work out of context - attributes like "cool", "funny", "handsome" or "brave". We take all these building blocks and assemble them in an image of self-perception that seems to suit us.

In reality, the persona we construct for ourselves says very little about us. In fact, the construction is pretty shaky to begin with. Take the foundation, the first building block given: My name says nothing about me. I don't need a name - society needs a name for me because otherwise everyone who isn't me has a hard time referring to me. This basically works for anything we establish in terms of persona. Categorizing myself as funny doesn't say anything about how much I make people laugh - but it's a useful categorization for everyone else - indicating that they might get some laughs from my company.

I suspect the reason we do create personas then is the way our brain works: We constantly categorize things so we may evaluate them. This works great for survival but can present quite a few problems with things that are intangible like our inner workings. Socially, we need a system to judge others, to know whether we can trust an individual or not. And since everyone does this to everyone, the concept of the persona arose quite naturally. It's like the business card of the self which we hand out to other people.

This is the self that is lost during flow state. It also means that "finding your true self" and "losing yourself" are the same thing. The true self in this sense is the me that does not have to rely on arbitrary categorization of predefined terms. The true self doesn't need any words at all. I'd say that's what defines it as true to begin with: It doesn't have to consider itself, no pause, no contemplation needed to think "Ah yes, this is me.". The true self simply knows, just how you simply know what to do in flow state.

On that note, I don't think "searching yourself" as many advocates of self-improvement promote is a fruitful endeavor. It's like a dog chasing his tail, never to reach his goal. It can be helpful along the process to take a close look at your persona - you'll be able to inspect your habits and eventually adjust them. But ultimately, if one is to follow the path of self-improvement to the end, the last step will be giving up on self-improvement because there comes the point where you're just circling around endlessly.

Mikie

↪Hermeticus

You touch on a number of fascinating and related (but apparently disparate) topics: flow, Buddhism and meditation, and drugs (MDMA). All of these happen to be major interests of mine as well.

It’s interesting to compare flow and the “ready-to-hand” of Heidegger or wu-wei of Taoism with the awareness cultivated with meditation, particularly the Vipassana tradition out of Buddhism. I like to think of some drugs (particularly psychedelics) as allowing a shortcut to states that can otherwise be achieved through meditation practice.

I think this all has real world application and potential to change people for the better.

Hermeticus

I like to think of some drugs (particularly psychedelics) as allowing a shortcut to states that can otherwise be achieved through meditation practice. — Xtrix

I think so too. It seems reasonable enough to me that humanities first experiences with mysticism and spirituality was due to the consumption of drugs as well. Long before we started practicing agriculture shamans were roaming nature, experimenting with herbs, discovering medicinical and hallucinogenic plants alike. The ritual use of these drugs seemed to have a strong impact on religious belief.

Interestingly, the practice of meditation and awareness is what may protect one from the pitfalls of drug use. The effects of psychedelics can be absolutely overwhelming. It's easy to see how people get addicted to these sensations that make most other sensations look pale in comparison. Sensible use then boils down to what those eastern philosophies teach us: Enjoy (the drug) but never chase it.

I do wonder how our society would look like today if we hadn't ever started a war on drugs.

Flow - The art of losing yourself

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