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Thursday, October 31, 2002
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Peter Russell writes: It is this belief that what we have or do determines our inner happiness that drives consumerism. We believe that buying things can make us happy. I don’t think that is the case. It may appear on the surface that things make us happy, but if you look more deeply at what’s actually going on, it is clear that we are being told by the advertisers and marketers that we’re missing something–the Channel dress or whatever it is–and that we cannot be happy without it. They create an artificial sense of missing something, and with it an artificial sense of unhappiness. We want something we haven’t got, and when we do go and buy it that wanting goes, and we feel happier again. You feel a wonderful relief, because the wanting has ceased. But it does not last for long. Soon there is something else we believe we need, and again we feel dissatisfied. The point is that it is not the buying of something that makes us happy, but buying it relieves us of the feeling of dissatisfaction that we have created for ourselves. Much of what we consume we consume not because of some physical need. We consume in order to satisfy some inner need. But since no external thing can ever really satiate an inner need, we keep on seeking, keep on buying, in the vain hope that if only we bought enough of the right things we will eventually find fulfillment. But all along we are looking in the wrong place. This is a brought out in a popular Sufi tale in which the character Nasrudin is out at night on his hands and knees underneath a street lamp in front of his house. His neighbour comes by and asks what he’s doing. "Looking for the key to my house", says Nasrudin. So the neighbour gets down to help him look for it. After a while, when they still haven’t found the key, the neighbour asks where exactly Nasrudin had dropped it. "Somewhere in my house", he replies. "Well why are you looking for it out here?" "Ah" says Nasrudin "there’s more light out here". We may laugh, but that in a way is exactly what our society would have us do? We’ve lost the key to inner fulfillment. But rather than search for the answer inside ourselves we look out to the world around us because there is indeed more light out there. The human mind is still such a mystery. But the external world is a different matter. There’s more light there. We know how that works and how to change it. We can reshape it into computers, wonderful clothes, cars, almost anything we can imagine. This is the world we can manage. So we set about controlling it in some way or another, in the hope that we’ll create the right circumstances for inner peace.
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9:56:48 PM 
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Csikszentmihalyi said he and his students conducted interviews of musicians, composers, writers, poets, and figure skaters to determine aspects of flow. Csikszentmihalyi described the seven aspects to how it feels to be in flow:
Being completely involved in what you are doing - focused, concentrated; a sense of ecstasy-of being outside everyday reality; great inner clarity - knowing what needs to be done, and how well we are doing; knowing that the activity is doable - that our skills are adequate to the task; a sense of serenity - no worries about oneself, and a feeling of growing beyond the boundaries of the ego; timelessness - thoroughly focused on the present, hours seem to pass by in minutes; intrinsic motivation - whatever produces flow becomes its own reward.
"The goal has to come from the inside, and nobody can tell you whether it was the right goal," Csikszentmihalyi said.
For these reasons it is rare for kids in school and some adults at work to experience flow, according to Csikszentmihalyi. He described it as people's minds being independent from their bodies. People process what they hear, but most of the time their minds are somewhere else.
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9:52:20 PM
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The Wolf Man comes home one day after a long day at the
office.
"How was work, dear?" his wife asks.
"Listen! I don't want to talk about work!" he barks.
"Okay. Would you like to sit down and eat a nice home cooked
meal?" she asks nicely.
"Listen!" he shouts again. "I'm not hungry! I don't wanna
eat! All right! Is that all right with you? Can I come home
from work and just do my own thing without you forcing food
down my throat?"
After this he continues to yell and shout and making a huge
fuss. Looking out the window, his wife sees a full moon, and
says to herself, "Well, I guess it's that time of the month."
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2:47:31 PM
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© Copyright
2002
Rick@Leaders.net.
Last update:
11/18/2002; 10:55:25 PM.
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