Meditation 9 min June lilac in the wind

Relaxation & Meditation

Driving a Car One of the Most Enjoyable Experiences in Life

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (read: chick-SENT-me-high), expert on flow states and optimal experience and author of Flow and Finding Flow, inter alia, says that driving a car is one of the most enjoyable activities that humans will ever do and one that often produces flow and optimal experience.

Here are some quotes from the latter book to back the point:

Driving a car ... is a surprisingly positive part of life. While neutral in terms of happiness and motivation, it requires skill and concentration, and some people experience flow more often when driving than in any other part of their lives.

For many people, driving a car gives the most consistent sense of freedom and control; they call it their "thinking machine" because while driving they can concentrate on their problems without interruptions, and resolve emotional conflicts in the protective cocoon of their personal vehicle.

Driving a car. That driving is one of the most enjoyable experiences in many people's lives was suggested by one of our ESM studies (Csikszentmihalyi and LeFevre 1989); a more in-depth ESM study sponsored by Nissan USA revealed many unanticipated details, some of which are reported throughout this volume.

Driving a car is so good for us because it requires skills perfected to automation, concentration and other states of the mind conducive to generating optimal experience while at the same time banishing boredom, anxiety and psychic entropy.

Now, if Elon Musk and other proponents of self-driving cars have their way, where will we be?! 

We will be deprived of all that flow and optimal experience (which is hard to come by in most people's lives) and instead will be thrust into doing nothing while the car drives which will at best lead to passive consumption of redundant information from the car entertainment system and at worst to boredom, anxiety, panic attacks and other manifestations of psychic entropy usually descending on an unoccupied mind.

Avtozilla: How Elon Musk and Other Self-Driving Nuts Threaten...: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (read: chick-SENT-me-high), expert on flow states and optimal experience and author of Flow and Finding Flow , int... VreMax: How Elon Musk and Other Self-Driving Pioneers Aim ...: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (read: chick-SENT-me-high), expert on flow states and optimal experience and author of Flow and Finding Flow , int...

Thoreau - I Have Heard No Bad News

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My actual life is a fact, in view of which I have no occasion to congratulate myself; but for my faith and aspiration I have respect. It is from these that I speak. Every man’s position is in fact too simple to be described. I have sworn no oath. I have no designs on society–or nature– or God. I am simply what I am, or I begin to be that. I live in the present. I only remember the past, and anticipate the future. I love to live. I love reform better than its modes. There is no history of how bad became better. I believe something, and there is nothing else but that. . . . I know that the enterprise is worthy– I know that things work well. I have heard no bad news. 

 

The excerpt is from the first letter to Blake, dated March 27, 1848.

 

Walden by Thoreau resource

 

 

Meditation 101: A Beginner's Guide Animation

Anne Dufourmantelle Argues for Risk Taking to Live Fuller Life Dies Taking Unnecessary Risks

Anne Dufourmantelle, a notable French philosopher, who in her body of work strongly advocated risk taking to apparently live a more fulfilled life, has died taking unnecessary risks trying to save two children from drowning.

I guess she set a poor example for her strain of philosophical reasoning for not only her attempt was unsuccessful in itself as she failed to save the children (children were saved but not by her but by life guards) but also she could not save herself as she risked her own life and the risk proved too much.

I guess she managed to disprove her own philosophy by dying more that she was able to argue it whilst living.

Not that her dying is bad (or good) in itself because we don't know what death or dying is. 

 

It could even be that death is the pinnacle of everything and something to be much desired or even actively sought after... but then again it may be not.

 

Who knows? 

Those who may know aren't here to tell.

VreMax: Manual of Epictetus

VreMax: Manual of Epictetus: A good read on stoics' philosophy... and not too heavy either -- the Manual of Epictetus aka Enchiridion -- epic! And it's free too...