Flow

Tonight is the first meeting of The No-Novels Book Group ... we have been reading Flow by the unpronounceable Hungarian psychologist. His central thesis is that "flow" is the secret to happiness. It sounds pretty much like sattva - it's the experience of being "in the zone" between the anxiety of overwhelming stress and the boredom of unchallenging circumstances. We find challenges that suit our present level of skills, and as we develop we raise the bar to keep things interesting.

One point struck me by its relevance to this blog. There are said to be two societal obstacles to happiness - anomie, which is the feeling of aimlessness that arises in a society without strong ethical norms; and alienation, which is the feeling of individual irrelevance that arises in a society with overpowering ethical norms.

As it happens His Holiness says something very similar in the 1991 Conversations, where he says "Each disciple must find balance within the disciplines so that he is neither ill-prepared nor over-powered". The assumption he makes, of course, is that the disciplines themselves allow this to happen easily and naturally. My own assumption is that our disciplines do not match perfectly the ones he is talking about. Click "read more!" to continue ...

I don't think it would be difficult to diagnose which of the two problems we face. We do not lack guidelines in the School; we have a lot of those, and many people join, I imagine, because it provides something that our society lacks in this regard. The School is a protection against Western anomie. So we would expect that if there are problems, they would come from excessive alienation of individual members and groups, from feeling that their own contribution is of very little relevance to the overall organization. No matter what I think or feel, certain things will never vary. I heard a senior lady remark recently that she felt that it did not matter in the least to the School whether she stayed or left. This is alienation.

This is beginning to be addressed. Students now have more personal choice, whether it is on major issues such as whether to attend a weekend or not, or on minor, but important matters such as what to wear. The danger is that, as history tells us, revolutions take place not when things are getting worse, but when they are getting better. The repressed individual suddenly wakes up to what has been happening all these years, and instead of being grateful for the moderation of discipline, storms off angrily.

So if we are going to reduce alienation, we need a corresponding strengthening of our principles. It is not enough to change the dress code and make a single (almost incomprehensible) announcement. People have given their lives to dressing as if they worked for a 1950s accountancy firm, or had a disfiguring birthmark on the lower calf. They cannot simply be expected to change this without it changing how they feel and think about the School. Are we going forward? Are we retreating in the face of pressure? What is the principle that was important then that we have now refined?

This is a time for leadership.