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Fandom and Flow
Dec. 6th, 2018 05:24 pmSo I have been thinking about fandom and why we do fandom and what we get out of it. I also just finished reading Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book about human happiness, and the specific states of mind that bring people the most lasting and most satisfying kind of happiness. And so why not write a little about it and how it plays into fandom on my first legit Dreamwidth post? (Hello, longform, my old friend…)
So, here’s the basic principle: people, according to MC, are most happy with themselves, who they are, and their general state of mind, at or after the point at which they have succeeded at something they have focused on intently, often to the point where they hyper-focus or reach a state of disconnect with the world outside of the activity they are completing. And, for a variety of reasons, people actually end up in this state most often in a work setting – mostly because the average person does not spend much of their free time challenging themselves like they do at work. They zone out watching tv, or do some other mindless activity. Which, I mean…fine, yeah? We all want to loaf sometimes.
BUT. ( Read More... )
So, here’s the basic principle: people, according to MC, are most happy with themselves, who they are, and their general state of mind, at or after the point at which they have succeeded at something they have focused on intently, often to the point where they hyper-focus or reach a state of disconnect with the world outside of the activity they are completing. And, for a variety of reasons, people actually end up in this state most often in a work setting – mostly because the average person does not spend much of their free time challenging themselves like they do at work. They zone out watching tv, or do some other mindless activity. Which, I mean…fine, yeah? We all want to loaf sometimes.
BUT. ( Read More... )
