Good Business_ Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [109]
Many contemporary artists experiment with hallucinogens in the hope of creating work as mysteriously haunting as those verses of the Kubla Khan that Samuel Coleridge allegedly composed under the influence of laudanum. Sooner or later, however, they realize that the composition of any work of art requires a sober mind. Work that is carried out under the influence of drugs lacks the complexity we expect from good art—it tends to be obvious and self-indulgent. A chemically altered consciousness may bring forth unusual images, thoughts, and feelings that later, when clarity returns, the artist can use. The danger is that in becoming dependent on chemicals for patterning the mind, he risks losing the ability to control it by himself.
Much of what passes for sexuality is also just a way of imposing an external order on our thoughts, of “killing time” without having to confront the perils of solitude. Not surprisingly, watching TV and having sex can become roughly interchangeable activities. The habits of pornography and depersonalized sex build on the genetically programmed attraction of images and activities related to reproduction. They focus attention naturally and pleasurably, and in so doing help to exclude unwanted contents from the mind. What they fail to do is develop any of the attentional habits that might lead to a greater complexity of consciousness.
The same argument holds for what might at first sight seem the opposite of pleasure: masochistic behavior, risk taking, gambling. These ways that people find to hurt or frighten themselves do not require a great deal of skill, but they do help one to achieve the sensation of direct experience. Even pain is better than the chaos that seeps into an unfocused mind. Hurting oneself, whether physically or emotionally, ensures that attention can be focused on something that, although painful, is at least controllable—since we are the ones causing it.
The ultimate test for the ability to control the quality of experience is what a person does in solitude, with no external demands to give structure to attention. It is relatively easy to become involved with a job, to enjoy the company of friends, to be entertained in a theater or at a concert. But what happens when we are left to our own devices? Alone, when the dark night of the soul descends, are we forced into frantic attempts to distract the mind from its coming? Or are we able to take on activities that are not only enjoyable, but make the self grow?
To fill free time with activities that require concentration, that increase skills, that lead to a development of the self, is not the same as killing time by watching television or taking recreational drugs. Although both strategies might be seen as different ways of coping with the same threat of chaos, as defenses against ontological anxiety, the former leads to growth, while the latter merely serves to keep the mind from unraveling. A person who rarely gets bored, who does not constantly need a favorable external environment to enjoy the moment, has passed the test for having achieved a creative life.
Learning to use time alone, instead of escaping from it, is especially important in our early years. Teenagers who can’t bear solitude disqualify themselves from later carrying out adult tasks that require serious mental preparation. A typical scenario familiar to many parents involves a teenager who comes back from school, drops the books in his bedroom, and after taking a snack from the refrigerator immediately heads for the phone to get in touch with his friends. If there is nothing going on there, he will turn on the stereo or the TV. If by any chance he is tempted to open a book, the resolve is unlikely to last long. To study means to concentrate on difficult patterns of information, and sooner or later even the most disciplined mind drifts away from the relentless templates on the page to pursue more pleasant thoughts. But it is difficult to summon up pleasant thoughts at will. Instead, one’s mind typically is besieged by the usual visitors: the shadowy phantoms