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The Psychology of Optimal Experience

by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

 

 

" Philosophy " used to mean " love of wisdom, " and people devoted their lives for

that reason.

Nowdays professional philosophers would be embarassed to acknowledge so naive a

conception

of their craft. Today a philosopher may be a specialist in deconstructionism or

logial positivism,

an expert in early Kant or late Hagel, an epistemologist or an existentialist,

but don't bother him

with wisdom. It is common fate of many human institutions to begin as a

response to some

universal problem until, after many generations, the problems peculiar to the

institutions themselves

will take precedence over the original goal.

 

 

also:

 

In philosophy as in other disciplines there comes a point where a person is

ready to pass from the

status of passive consumer to that of active producer. To write down one's

insights expecting that

they will be read with awe by posterity would be in most cases an act of hubris,

that " overweening presumption " that has caused so much mischief in human

affairs. But if one records

ideas in response to inner challenge to express clearly the major questions by

which one feels confronted,

and tries to sketch out answers that will help make sense of one's experiences,

then the amateur

philosopher will have learned to derive enjoyment from one of the most diffucult

and rewarding tasks of life.

 

 

Love,

 

Anna