Good Business

Chapter 7

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This apparent contradiction is actually not that difficult to resolve. Like anything else that really matters, relationships make us extremely happy when they go well, and very depressed when they don"t work out. People are the most flexible, the most changeable aspect of the environment we have to deal with. The same person can make the morning wonderful and the evening miserable. Because we depend so much on the affection and approval of others, we are extremely vulnerable to how we are treated by them.

Therefore a person who learns to get along with others is going to make a tremendous change for the better in the quality of life as a whole. This fact is well known to those who write and those who read books with t.i.tles such as How to Win Friends and Influence People How to Win Friends and Influence People. Business executives yearn to communicate better so that they can be more effective managers, and debutantes read books on etiquette to be accepted and admired by the "in" crowd. Much of this concern reflects an extrinsically motivated desire to manipulate others. But people are not important only because they can help make our goals come true; when they are treated as valuable in their own right, people are the most fulfilling source of happiness.

It is the very flexibility of relationships that makes it possible to transform unpleasant interactions into tolerable, or even exciting ones. How we define and interpret a social situation makes a great difference to how people will treat one another, and to how they will feel while doing it. For instance, when our son Mark was twelve years old, he took a shortcut across a rather deserted park one afternoon as he walked home from school. In the middle of the park he was suddenly confronted by three large young men from the neighboring ghetto. "Don"t make a move or he"ll shoot you," one of them said, nodding toward the third man, who had his hand in his pocket. The three took away everything Mark had-some change and a worn Timex. "Now keep on going. Don"t run, don"t even turn around."

So Mark started walking again toward home, and the three went in the other direction. After a few steps, however, Mark turned around and tried to catch up with them. "Listen," he called, "I want to talk to you.""Keep going," they shouted back. But he caught up with the trio, and asked if they would reconsider giving him back the watch they had taken. He explained that it was very cheap, and of no possible value to anyone except him: "You see, it was given to me on my birthday by my parents." The three were furious, but finally decided to take a vote on whether to give back the watch. The vote went two to one in favor of returning it, so Mark walked proudly home without change but with the old watch in his pocket. Of course it took his parents a lot longer to recover from the experience.

From an adult perspective, Mark was foolish to possibly risk his life for an old watch, no matter how sentimentally valued it was. But this episode ill.u.s.trates an important general point: that a social situation has the potential to be transformed by redefining its rules. By not taking on the role of the "victim" that had been imposed on him, and by not treating his a.s.sailants as "robbers," but as reasonable people who might be expected to empathize with a son"s attachment to a family keepsake, Mark was able to change the encounter from a holdup to one that involved, at least to some degree, a rational democratic decision. In this case his success was largely dependent on luck: the robbers could have been drunk, or alienated beyond the reach of reason, and then he might have been seriously hurt. But the point is still valid: human relations are malleable, and if a person has the appropriate skills their rules can be transformed.

But before considering in more depth how relationships can be reshaped to provide optimal experiences, it is necessary to take a detour through the realms of solitude. Only after understanding a bit better how being alone affects the mind can we see more clearly why companionship is so indispensable to well-being. The average adult spends about one-third of his or her waking time alone, yet we know very little about this huge slice of our lives, except that we heartily dislike it.

THE PAIN OF LONELINESS.

Most people feel a nearly intolerable sense of emptiness when they are alone, especially with nothing specific to do. Adolescents, adults, and old people all report that their worst experiences have taken place in solitude. Almost every activity is more enjoyable with another person around, and less so when one does it alone. People are more happy, alert, and cheerful if there are others present, compared to how they feel alone, whether they are working on an a.s.sembly line or watching television. But the most depressing condition is not that of working or watching TV alone; the worst moods are reported when one is alone and there is nothing that needs needs to be done. For people in our studies who live by themselves and do not attend church, Sunday mornings are the lowest part of the week, because with no demands on attention, they are unable to decide what to do. The rest of the week psychic energy is directed by external routines: work, shopping, favorite TV shows, and so on. But what is one to do Sunday morning after breakfast, after having browsed through the papers? For many, the lack of structure of those hours is devastating. Generally by noon a decision is made: I"ll mow the lawn, visit relatives, or watch the football game. A sense of purpose then returns, and attention is focused on the next goal. to be done. For people in our studies who live by themselves and do not attend church, Sunday mornings are the lowest part of the week, because with no demands on attention, they are unable to decide what to do. The rest of the week psychic energy is directed by external routines: work, shopping, favorite TV shows, and so on. But what is one to do Sunday morning after breakfast, after having browsed through the papers? For many, the lack of structure of those hours is devastating. Generally by noon a decision is made: I"ll mow the lawn, visit relatives, or watch the football game. A sense of purpose then returns, and attention is focused on the next goal.

Why is solitude such a negative experience? The bottom-line answer is that keeping order in the mind from within is very difficult. We need external goals, external stimulation, external feedback to keep attention directed. And when external input is lacking, attention begins to wander, and thoughts become chaotic-resulting in the state we have called "psychic entropy" in chapter 2.

When left alone, the typical teenager begins to wonder: "What is my girlfriend doing now? Am I getting zits? Will I get to finish the math a.s.signment on time? Are those dudes I had a fight with yesterday going to beat me up?" In other words, with nothing to do, the mind is unable to prevent negative thoughts from elbowing their way to center stage. And unless one learns to control consciousness, the same situation confronts adults. Worries about one"s love life, health, investments, family, and job are always hovering at the periphery of attention, waiting until there is nothing pressing that demands concentration. As soon as the mind is ready to relax, zap! zap! the potential problems that were waiting in the wings take over. the potential problems that were waiting in the wings take over.

It is for this reason that television proves such a boon to so many people. Although watching TV is far from being a positive experience-generally people report feeling pa.s.sive, weak, rather irritable, and sad when doing it-at least the flickering screen brings a certain amount of order to consciousness. The predictable plots, familiar characters, and even the redundant commercials provide a rea.s.suring pattern of stimulation. The screen invites attention to itself as a manageable, restricted aspect of the environment. While interacting with television, the mind is protected from personal worries. The information pa.s.sing across the screen keeps unpleasant concerns out of the mind. Of course, avoiding depression this way is rather spendthrift, because one expends a great deal of attention without having much to show for it afterward.

More drastic ways of coping with the dread of solitude include the regular use of drugs, or the recourse to obsessive practices, which may range from cleaning the house incessantly to compulsive s.e.xual behavior. While under the influence of chemicals, the self is relieved from the responsibility of directing its psychic energy; we can sit back and watch the patterns of thought that the drug is providing for-whatever happens, it"s out of our hands. And like television, the drug keeps the mind from having to face depressing thoughts. While alcohol and other drugs are capable of producing optimal experiences, they are usually at a very low level of complexity. Unless consumed in highly skilled ritual contexts, as is practiced in many traditional societies, what drugs in fact do is reduce reduce our perception of both what can be accomplished and what we as individuals are able to accomplish, until the two are in balance. This is a pleasant state of affairs, but it is only a misleading simulation of that enjoyment that comes from our perception of both what can be accomplished and what we as individuals are able to accomplish, until the two are in balance. This is a pleasant state of affairs, but it is only a misleading simulation of that enjoyment that comes from increasing increasing opportunities for actions and the abilities to act. opportunities for actions and the abilities to act.

Some people will disagree strongly with this description of how drugs affect the mind. After all, for the past quarter-century we have been told with increasing confidence that drugs are "consciousness-expanding," and that using them enhances creativity. But the evidence suggests that while chemicals do alter the content and the organization of consciousness, they do not expand or increase the self"s control over its function. Yet to accomplish anything creative, one must achieve just such control. Therefore, while psychotropic drugs do provide a wider variety of mental experiences than one would encounter under normal sensory conditions, they do so without adding to our ability to order them effectively.

Many contemporary artists experiment with hallucinogens in the hope of creating work as mysteriously haunting as those verses of the Kubla Khan Kubla Khan that Samuel Coleridge allegedly composed under the influence of laudanum. Sooner or later, however, they realize that the that Samuel Coleridge allegedly composed under the influence of laudanum. Sooner or later, however, they realize that the composition 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. 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 pa.s.ses for s.e.xuality 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 s.e.x can become roughly interchangeable activities. The habits of p.o.r.nography and depersonalized s.e.x 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: m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic 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 pa.s.sed 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 that intrude on the unstructured mind. The teenager begins to worry about his looks, his popularity, his chances in life. To repel these intrusions he must find something else to occupy his consciousness. Studying won"t do, because it is too difficult. The adolescent is ready to do almost anything to take his mind off this situation-provided it does not take too much psychic energy. The usual solution is to turn back to the familiar routine of music, TV, or a friend with whom to while the time away.

With every pa.s.sing decade our culture becomes more dependent on information technology. To survive in such an environment, a person must become familiar with abstract symbolic languages. A few generations ago someone who did not know how to read and write could still have found a job that provided a good income and reasonable dignity. A farmer, a blacksmith, a small merchant could learn the skills required for his vocation as an apprentice to older experts and do well without mastering a symbolic system. Nowadays even the simplest jobs rely on written instructions, and more complex occupations require specialized knowledge that one must learn the hard way-alone.

Adolescents who never learn to control their consciousness grow up to be adults without a "discipline." They lack the complex skills that will help them survive in a compet.i.tive, information-intensive environment. And what is even more important, they never learn how to enjoy living. They do not acquire the habit of finding challenges that bring out hidden potentials for growth.

But the teenage years are not the only time when it is crucial to learn how to exploit the opportunities of solitude. Unfortunately, too many adults feel that once they have hit twenty or thirty-or certainly forty-they are ent.i.tled to relax in whatever habitual grooves they have established. They have paid their dues, they have learned the tricks it takes to survive, and from now on they can proceed on cruise control. Equipped with the bare minimum of inner discipline, such people inevitably acc.u.mulate entropy with each pa.s.sing year. Career disappointments, the failure of physical health, the usual slings and arrows of fate build up a ma.s.s of negative information that increasingly threatens their peace of mind. How does one keep these problems away? If a person does not know how to control attention in solitude, he will inevitably turn to the easy external solutions: drugs, entertainment, excitement-whatever dulls or distracts the mind.

But such responses are regressive-they do not lead forward. The way to grow while enjoying life is to create a higher form of order out of the entropy that is an inevitable condition of living. This means taking each new challenge not as something to be repressed or avoided, but as an opportunity for learning and for improving skills. When physical vigor fails with age, for example, it means that one will be ready to turn one"s energies from the mastery of the external world to a deeper exploration of inner reality. It means that one can finally read Proust, take up chess, grow orchids, help one"s neighbors, and think about G.o.d-if these are the things one has decided are worth pursuing. But it is difficult to accomplish any of them unless one has earlier acquired the habit of using solitude to good advantage.

It is best to develop this habit early, but it is never too late to do so. In the previous chapters we have reviewed some of the ways the body and the mind can make flow happen. When a person is able to call upon such activities at will, regardless of what is happening externally, then one has learned how to shape the quality of life.

TAMING SOLITUDE.

Every rule has its exceptions, and even though most people dread solitude, there are some individuals who live alone by choice. "Whosoever is delighted in solitude," goes the old saying that Francis Bacon repeated, "is either a wild beast or a G.o.d." One does not actually have to be a G.o.d, but it is true that to enjoy being alone a person must build his own mental routines, so that he can achieve flow without the supports of civilized life-without other people, without jobs, TV, theaters, restaurants, or libraries to help channel his attention. One interesting example of this type of person is a woman named Dorothy, who lives on a tiny island in the lonely region of lakes and forests of northern Minnesota, along the Canadian border. Originally a nurse in a large city, Dorothy moved to the wilderness after her husband died and their children grew up. During the three summer months fishermen canoeing across her lake stop at the island to have a chat, but during the long winters she is completely alone for months on end. Dorothy has had to hang heavy drapes on the windows of her cabin, because it used to unnerve her to see packs of wolves, their noses flattened against the windowpanes, looking at her longingly when she woke up in the mornings.

Like other people who live alone in the wilderness, Dorothy has tried to personalize her surroundings to an uncommon degree. There are flower tubs, garden gnomes, discarded tools all over the grounds. Most trees have signs nailed to them, filled with doggerel rhymes, corny jokes, or h.o.a.ry cartoons pointing to the sheds and outhouses. To an urban visitor, the island is the epitome of kitsch. But as extensions of Dorothy"s taste, this "junk" creates a familiar environment where her mind can be at ease. In the midst of untamed nature, she has introduced her own idiosyncratic style, her own civilization. Inside, her favorite objects recall Dorothy"s goals. She has stamped her preferences on chaos.

More important than structuring s.p.a.ce, perhaps, is structuring time. Dorothy has strict routines for every day of the year: up by five, check the hens for eggs, milk the goat, split some wood, make breakfast, wash, sew, fish, and so on. Like the colonial Englishmen who shaved and dressed impeccably every evening in their lonely outposts, Dorothy also has learned that to keep control in an alien environment one must impose one"s own order on the wilderness. The long evenings are taken up by reading and writing. Books on every imaginable subject line the walls of her two cabins. Then there are the occasional trips for supplies, and in the summer some variety is introduced by the visits of fishermen pa.s.sing through. Dorothy seems to like people, but she likes being in control of her own world even more.

One can survive solitude, but only if one finds ways of ordering attention that will prevent entropy from destructuring the mind. Susan Butcher, the dog breeder and trainer who races sleds in the Arctic for up to eleven days on end while trying to elude the attacks of rogue moose and wolves, moved years ago from Ma.s.sachusetts to live in a cabin twenty-five miles from the nearest village of Manley, Alaska (population sixty-two). Before her marriage, she lived alone with her hundred and fifty huskies. She doesn"t have the time to feel lonely: hunting for food and caring for her dogs, who require her attention sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, prevent that. She knows each dog by name, and the name of each dog"s parents and grandparents. She knows their temperaments, preferences, eating habits, and current health. Susan claims she would rather live this way than do anything else. The routines she has built demand that her consciousness be focused on manageable tasks all of the time-thereby making life a continuous flow experience.

A friend who likes to cross oceans alone on a sailboat once told an anecdote that ill.u.s.trates the lengths to which solitary cruisers sometimes have to go in order to keep their minds focused. Approaching the Azores on an eastward crossing of the Atlantic, about eight hundred miles short of the Portuguese coast, and after many days without sighting a sail, he saw another small craft heading the opposite way. It was a welcome opportunity to visit with a fellow cruiser, and the two boats set course to meet in the open sea, side by side. The man in the other boat had been scrubbing his deck, which was partly covered by a foul-smelling, sticky yellow substance. "How did you get your boat so dirty?" asked my friend to break the ice. "Well, you see," shrugged the other, "it"s just a mess of rotten eggs." My friend admitted that it wasn"t obvious to him how so many rotten eggs happened to get smeared over a boat in the middle of the ocean. "Well," said the man, "the fridge gave out, and the eggs spoiled. There hasn"t been any wind for days, and I was getting really bored. So I thought that instead of tossing the eggs overboard, I would break them over the deck, so that I would get to clean them off afterward. I let them set for a while so it would be harder to clean them off, but I didn"t figure on them smelling so bad." In ordinary circ.u.mstances, solo sailors have plenty to keep their minds occupied. Their survival depends on being ever alert to the conditions of the boat and of the sea. It is this constant concentration on a workable goal that makes sailing so enjoyable. But when the doldrums set in, they might have to go to heroic lengths to find any challenge at all.

Is coping with loneliness by letting unnecessary yet demanding rituals give shape to the mind any different from taking drugs or watching TV constantly? It could be argued that Dorothy and the other hermits are escaping from "reality" just as effectively as addicts are. In both cases, psychic entropy is avoided by taking the mind off unpleasant thoughts and feelings. Yet how how one copes with solitude makes all the difference. If being alone is seen as a chance to accomplish goals that cannot be reached in the company of others, then instead of feeling lonely, a person will enjoy solitude and might be able to learn new skills in the process. On the other hand, if solitude is seen as a condition to be avoided at all costs instead of as a challenge, the person will panic and resort to distractions that cannot lead to higher levels of complexity. Breeding furry dogs and racing sleds through arctic forests might seem like a rather primitive endeavor, compared to the glamorous antics of playboys or cocaine users. Yet in terms of psychic organization the former is infinitely more complex than the latter. Life-styles built on pleasure survive only in symbiosis with complex cultures based on hard work and enjoyment. But when the culture is no longer able or willing to support unproductive hedonists, those addicted to pleasure, lacking skills and discipline and therefore unable to fend for themselves, find themselves lost and helpless. one copes with solitude makes all the difference. If being alone is seen as a chance to accomplish goals that cannot be reached in the company of others, then instead of feeling lonely, a person will enjoy solitude and might be able to learn new skills in the process. On the other hand, if solitude is seen as a condition to be avoided at all costs instead of as a challenge, the person will panic and resort to distractions that cannot lead to higher levels of complexity. Breeding furry dogs and racing sleds through arctic forests might seem like a rather primitive endeavor, compared to the glamorous antics of playboys or cocaine users. Yet in terms of psychic organization the former is infinitely more complex than the latter. Life-styles built on pleasure survive only in symbiosis with complex cultures based on hard work and enjoyment. But when the culture is no longer able or willing to support unproductive hedonists, those addicted to pleasure, lacking skills and discipline and therefore unable to fend for themselves, find themselves lost and helpless.

This is not to imply that the only way to achieve control over consciousness is to move to Alaska and hunt moose. A person can master flow activities in almost any environment. A few will need to live in the wilderness, or to spend long periods of time alone at sea. Most people will prefer to be surrounded by the rea.s.suring hustle and bustle of human interaction. However, solitude is a problem that must be confronted whether one lives in southern Manhattan or the northern reaches of Alaska. Unless a person learns to enjoy it, much of life will be spent desperately trying to avoid its ill effects.

FLOW AND THE FAMILY.

Some of the most intense and meaningful experiences in people"s lives are the result of family relationships. Many successful men and women would second Lee Iacocca"s statement: "I"ve had a wonderful and successful career. But next to my family, it really hasn"t mattered at all."

Throughout history, people have been born into and have spent their entire lives in kinship groups. Families have varied greatly in size and composition, but everywhere individuals feel a special intimacy toward relatives, with whom they interact more often than with people outside the family. Sociobiologists claim that this familial loyalty is proportional to the amount of genes that any two persons share: for instance, a brother and a sister will have half their genes in common, while two cousins only half as many again. In this scenario siblings will, on the average, help each other out twice as much as cousins. Thus the special feelings we have for our relatives are simply a mechanism designed to ensure that the genes" own kind will be preserved and replicated.

There are certainly strong biological reasons for our having a particular attachment to relatives. No slowly maturing mammalian species could have survived without some built-in mechanism that made most adults feel responsible for their young, and the young feel dependent on the old; for that reason the bond of the newborn human infant to its caretakers, and vice versa, is especially strong. But the actual kinds of relationships families have supported have been astonishingly diverse in various cultures, and at various times.

For instance, whether marriage is polygamous or monogamous, or whether it is patrilineal or matrilineal, has a rather strong influence on the kind of daily experiences husbands, wives, and children have with one another. So do less obvious features of family structure, such as specific patterns of inheritance. The many small princ.i.p.alities into which Germany had been divided until about a century ago each had laws of inheritance that were based either on primogeniture, where the oldest son was left the entire family estate, or on an equal division of the estate among all sons. Which of these methods for transmitting property was adopted seems to have been due almost entirely to chance, yet the choice had profound economic implications. (Primogeniture led to concentration of capital in the lands that used this method, which in turn led to industrialization; whereas equal sharing led to the fragmentation of property and industrial underdevelopment.) More pertinent to our story, the relationship between siblings in a culture that had adopted primogeniture must have been substantially different from one in which equal economic benefits accrued to all children. The feelings brothers and sisters had for one another, what they expected from one another, their reciprocal rights and responsibilities, were to a large extent "built into" the peculiar form of the family system. As this example demonstrates, while genetic programming may predispose us to attachment to family members, the cultural context will have a great deal to do with the strength and direction of that attachment.

Because the family is our first and in many ways our most important social environment, quality of life depends to a large extent on how well a person succeeds in making the interaction with his or her relatives enjoyable. For no matter how strong the ties biology and culture have forged between family members, it is no secret that there is great variety in how people feel about their relatives. Some families are warm and supportive, some are challenging and demanding, others threaten the self of their members at every turn, still others are just insufferably boring. The frequency of murder is much higher among family members than among unrelated people. Child abuse and incestuous s.e.xual molestation, once thought to be rare deviations from the norm, apparently occur much more often than anyone had previously suspected. In John Fletcher"s words, "Those have most power to hurt us that we love." It is clear that the family can make one very happy, or be an unbearable burden. Which one it will be depends, to a great extent, on how much psychic energy family members invest in the mutual relationship, and especially in each other"s goals.

Every relationship requires a reorienting of attention, a repositioning of goals. When two people begin to go out together, they must accept certain constraints that each person alone did not have: schedules have to be coordinated, plans modified. Even something as simple as a dinner date imposes compromises as to time, place, type of food, and so on. To some degree the couple will have to respond with similar emotions to the stimuli they encounter-the relationship will probably not last long if the man loves a movie that the woman hates, and vice versa. When two people choose to focus their attention on each other, both will have to change their habits; as a result, the pattern of their consciousness will also have to change. Getting married requires a radical and permanent reorientation of attentional habits. When a child is added to the pair, both parents have to readapt again to accommodate the needs of the infant: their sleep cycle must change, they will go out less often, the wife may give up her job, they may have to start saving for the child"s education.

All this can be very hard work, and it can also be very frustrating. If a person is unwilling to adjust personal goals when starting a relationship, then a lot of what subsequently happens in that relationship will produce disorder in the person"s consciousness, because novel patterns of interaction will conflict with old patterns of expectation. A bachelor may have, on his list of priorities, to drive a sleek sports car and to spend a few weeks each winter in the Caribbean. Later he decides to marry and have a child. As he realizes these latter goals, however, he discovers that they are incompatible with the prior ones. He can"t afford a Maserati any longer, and the Bahamas are out of reach. Unless he revises the old goals, they will be frustrated, producing that sense of inner conflict known as psychic entropy. And if he changes goals, his self will change as a consequence-the self being the sum and organization of goals. In this manner entering any relationship entails a transformation of the self.

Until a few decades ago, families tended to stay together because parents and children were forced to continue the relationship for extrinsic reasons. If divorces were rare in the past, it wasn"t because husbands and wives loved each other more in the old times, but because husbands needed someone to cook and keep house, wives needed someone to bring home the bacon, and children needed both parents in order to eat, sleep, and get a start in the world. The "family values" that the elders spent so much effort inculcating in the young were a reflection of this simple necessity, even when it was cloaked in religious and moral considerations. Of course, once family values were taught as being important, people learned to take them seriously, and they helped keep families from disintegrating. All too often, however, the moral rules were seen as an outside imposition, an external constraint under which husbands, wives, and children chafed. In such cases the family may have remained intact physically, but it was internally riven with conflicts and hatred. The current "disintegration" of the family is the result of the slow disappearance of external reasons for staying married. The increase in the divorce rate is probably more affected by changes in the labor market that have increased women"s employment opportunities, and by the diffusion of labor-saving home appliances, than it is by a lessening of love or of moral fiber.

But extrinsic reasons are not the only ones for staying married and for living together in families. There are great opportunities for joy and for growth that can only be experienced in family life, and these intrinsic rewards are no less present now than they were in the past; in fact, they are probably much more readily available today than they have been at any previous time. If the trend of traditional families keeping together mainly as a convenience is on the wane, the number of families that endure because their members enjoy each other may be increasing. Of course, because external forces are still much more powerful than internal ones, the net effect is likely to be a further fragmentation of family life for some time to come. But the families that do persevere will be in a better position to help their members develop a rich self than families held together against their will are able to do.

There have been endless discussions about whether humans are naturally promiscuous, polygamous, or monogamous; and whether in terms of cultural evolution monogamy is the highest form of family organization. It is important to realize that these questions deal only with the extrinsic conditions shaping marriage relationships. And on that count, the bottom line seems to be that marriages will take the form that most efficiently ensures survival. Even members of the same animal species will vary their patterns of relationship so as to adapt best in a given environment. For instance the male long-billed marsh wren (Cistothorus pal.u.s.tris) is polygamous in Washington, where swamps vary in quality and females are attracted to those few males who have rich territories, leaving the less lucky ones to a life of enforced bachelorhood. The same wrens are monogamous in Georgia, not so much because that state is part of the Bible Belt, but because the marshes all have roughly the same amount of food and cover, and so each male can attract a doting spouse to an equally comfortable nesting site.

The form the human family takes is a response to similar kinds of environmental pressures. In terms of extrinsic reasons, we are monogamous because in technological societies based on a money economy, time has proven this to be a more convenient arrangement. But the issue we have to confront as individuals is not whether humans are "naturally" monogamous or not, but whether we want want to be monogamous or not. And in answering that question, we need to weigh all the consequences of our choice. to be monogamous or not. And in answering that question, we need to weigh all the consequences of our choice.

It is customary to think of marriage as the end of freedom, and some refer to their spouses as "old ball-and-chain." The notion of family life typically implies constraints, responsibilities that interfere with one"s goals and freedom of action. While this is true, especially when the marriage is one of convenience, what we tend to forget is that these rules and obligations are no different, in principle, than those rules that constrain behavior in a game. Like all rules, they exclude a wide range of possibilities so that we might concentrate fully on a selected set of options.

Cicero once wrote that to be completely free one must become a slave to a set of laws. In other words, accepting limitations is liberating. For example, by making up one"s mind to invest psychic energy exclusively in a monogamous marriage, regardless of any problems, obstacles, or more attractive options that may come along later, one is freed of the constant pressure of trying to maximize emotional returns. Having made the commitment that an old-fashioned marriage demands, and having made it willingly instead of being compelled by tradition, a person no longer needs to worry whether she has made the right choice, or whether the gra.s.s might be greener somewhere else. As a result a great deal of energy gets freed up for living, instead of being spent on wondering about how to live.

If one decides to accept the traditional form of the family, complete with a monogamous marriage, and with a close involvement with children, with relatives, and with the community, it is important to consider beforehand how family life can be turned into a flow activity. Because if it is not, boredom and frustration will inevitably set in, and then the relationship is likely to break up unless there are strong external factors keeping it together.

To provide flow, a family has to have a goal for its existence. Extrinsic reasons are not sufficient: it is not enough to feel that, well, "Everybody else is married,""It is natural to have children," or "Two can live as cheaply as one." These att.i.tudes may encourage one to start a family, and may even be strong enough to keep it going, but they cannot make family life enjoyable. Positive goals are necessary to focus the psychic energies of parents and children on common tasks.

Some of these goals might be very general and long-term, such as planning a particular life-style-to build an ideal home, to provide the best possible education for the children, or to implement a religious way of living in a modern secularized society. For such goals to result in interactions that will help increase the complexity of its members, the family must be both differentiated differentiated and and integrated integrated. Differentiation means that each person is encouraged to develop his or her unique traits, maximize personal skills, set individual goals. Integration, in contrast, guarantees that what happens to one person will affect all others. If a child is proud of what she accomplished in school, the rest of the family will pay attention and will be proud of her, too. If the mother is tired and depressed, the family will try to help and cheer her up. In an integrated family, each person"s goals matter to all others.

In addition to long-term goals, it is imperative to have a constant supply of short-term objectives. These may include simple tasks like buying a new sofa, going on a picnic, planning for a vacation, or playing a game of Scrabble together on Sunday afternoon. Unless there are goals that the whole family is willing to share, it is almost impossible for its members to be physically together, let alone involved in an enjoyable joint activity. Here again, differentiation and integration are important: the common goals should reflect the goals of individual members as much as possible. If Rick wants to go to a motocross race, and Erica would like to go to the aquarium, it should be possible for everyone to watch the race one weekend, and then visit the aquarium the next. The beauty of such an arrangement is that Erica is likely to enjoy some of the aspects of bike racing, and Rick might actually get to appreciate looking at fish, even though neither would have discovered as much if left to his or her own prejudices.

As with any other flow activity, family activities should also provide clear feedback. In this case, it is simply a matter of keeping open channels of communication. If a husband does not know what bothers his wife, and vice versa, neither has the opportunity to reduce the inevitable tensions that will arise. In this context it is worth stressing that entropy is the basic condition of group life, just as it is of personal experience. Unless the partners invest psychic energy in the relationship, conflicts are inevitable, simply because each individual has goals that are to a certain extent divergent from those of all other members of the family. Without good lines of communication the distortions will become amplified, until the relationship falls apart.

Feedback is also crucial to determine whether family goals are being achieved. My wife and I used to think that taking our children to the zoo on a Sunday every few months was a splendid educational activity, and one that we could all enjoy. But when our oldest child turned ten, we stopped going because he had become seriously distressed with the idea of animals being confined in restricted s.p.a.ces. It is a fact of life that sooner or later all children will express the opinion that common family activities are "dumb." At this point, forcing them to do things together tends to be counterproductive. So most parents just give up, and abandon their teenagers to the peer culture. The more fruitful, if more difficult, strategy is to find a new set of activities that will continue to keep the family group involved.

The balancing of challenges and skills is another factor as necessary in enjoying social relationships in general, and family life in particular, as it is for any other flow activity. When a man and a woman are first attracted to each other, the opportunities for action are usually clear enough. Ever since the dawn of time, the most basic challenge for the swain has been "Can I make her?" and for the maid, "Can I catch him?" Usually, and depending on the partners" level of skill, a host of more complex challenges are also perceived: to find out what sort of a person the other really is, what movies she likes, what he thinks about South Africa, and whether the encounter is likely to develop into a "meaningful relationship." Then there are fun things to do together, places to visit, parties to go to and talk about afterward, and so on.

With time one gets to know the other person well, and the obvious challenges have been exhausted. All the usual gambits have been tried; the other person"s reactions have become predictable. s.e.xual play has lost its first excitement. At this point, the relationship is in danger of becoming a boring routine that might be kept alive by mutual convenience, but is unlikely to provide further enjoyment, or spark a new growth in complexity. The only way to restore flow to the relationship is by finding new challenges in it.

These might involve steps as simple as varying the routines of eating, sleeping, or shopping. They might involve making an effort to talk together about new topics of conversation, visiting new places, making new friends. More than anything else they involve paying attention to the partner"s own complexity, getting to know her at deeper levels than were necessary in the earlier days of the relationship, supporting him with sympathy and compa.s.sion during the inevitable changes that the years bring. A complex relationship sooner or later faces the big question: whether the two partners are ready to make a lifelong commitment. At that point, a whole new set of challenges presents itself: raising a family together, getting involved in broader community affairs when the children have grown up, working alongside one another. Of course, these things cannot happen without extensive inputs of energy and time; but the payoff in terms of the quality of experience is usually more than worth it.

The same need to constantly increase challenges and skills applies to one"s relationship with children. During the course of infancy and early childhood most parents spontaneously enjoy the unfolding of their babies" growth: the first smile, the first word, the first few steps, the first scribbles. Each of these quantum jumps in the child"s skills becomes a new joyful challenge, to which parents respond by enriching the child"s opportunities to act. From the cradle to the playpen to the playground to kindergarten, the parents keep adjusting the balance of challenges and skills between the child and her environment. But by early adolescence, many teenagers get to be too much to handle. What most parents do at that point is to politely ignore their children"s lives, pretending that everything is all right, hoping against hope that it will be.

Teenagers are physiologically mature beings, ripe for s.e.xual reproduction; in most societies (and in ours too, a century or so ago) they are considered ready for adult responsibilities and appropriate recognition. Because our present social arrangements, however, do not provide adequate challenges for the skills teenagers have, they must discover opportunities for action outside those sanctioned by adults. The only outlets they find, all too often, are vandalism, delinquency, drugs, and recreational s.e.x. Under existing conditions, it is very difficult for parents to compensate for the poverty of opportunities in the culture at large. In this respect, families living in the richest suburbs are barely better off than families living in the slums. What can a strong, vital, intelligent fifteen-year-old do in your typical suburb? If you consider that question you will probably conclude that what is available is either too artificial, or too simple, or not exciting enough to catch a teenager"s imagination. It is not surprising that athletics are so important in suburban schools; compared to the alternatives, they provide some of the most concrete chances to exercise and display one"s skills.

But there are some steps that families can take to partially alleviate this wasteland of opportunities. In older times, young men left home for a while as apprentices and traveled to distant towns to be exposed to new challenges. Today something similar exists in America for late teens: the custom of leaving home for college. The problem remains with the period of p.u.b.erty, roughly the five years between twelve and seventeen: What meaningful challenges can be found for young people that age? The situation is much easier when the parents themselves are involved in understandable and complex activities at home. If the parents enjoy playing music, cooking, reading, gardening, carpentry, or fixing engines in the garage, then it is more likely that their children will find similar activities challenging, and invest enough attention in them to begin enjoy doing something that will help them grow. If parents just talked more about their ideals and dreams-even if these had been frustrated-the children might develop the ambition needed to break through the complacency of their present selves. If nothing else, discussing one"s job or the thoughts and events of the day, and treating children as young adults, as friends, help to socialize them into thoughtful adults. But if the father spends all his free time at home vegetating in front of the TV set with a gla.s.s of alcohol in his hand, children will naturally a.s.sume that adults are boring people who don"t know how to have fun, and will turn to the peer group for enjoyment.

In poorer communities youth gangs provide plenty of real challenges for boys. Fights, acts of bravado, and ritual displays such as motorcycle gang parades match the youths" skills with concrete opportunities. In affluent suburbs not even this arena for action is available to teenagers. Most activities, including school, recreation, and employment, are under adult control and leave little room for the youths" initiative. Lacking any meaningful outlet for their skills and creativity, they may turn to redundant partying, joyriding, malicious gossiping, or drugs and narcissistic introspection to prove to themselves that they are alive. Consciously or not, many young girls feel that becoming pregnant is the only really adult thing they can do, despite its dangers and unpleasant consequences. How to restructure such an environment so as to make it sufficiently challenging is certainly one of the most pressing tasks parents of teenagers face. And it is of no value simply to tell one"s strapping adolescent children to shape up and do something useful. What does help are living examples and concrete opportunities. If these are not available, one cannot blame the young for taking their own counsel.

Some of the tensions of teenage life can be eased if the family provides a sense of acceptance, control, and self-confidence to the adolescent. A relationship that has these dimensions is one in which people trust one another, and feel totally accepted. One does not have to worry constantly about being liked, being popular, or living up to others" expectations. As the popular sayings go, "Love means never having to say "I"m sorry,"""Home is where you"re always welcome." Being a.s.sured of one"s worth in the eyes of one"s kin gives a person the strength to take chances; excessive conformity is usually caused by fear of disapproval. It is much easier for a person to try developing her potential if she knows that no matter what happens, she has a safe emotional base in the family.

Unconditional acceptance is especially important to children. If parents threaten to withdraw their love from a child when he fails to measure up, the child"s natural playfulness will be gradually replaced by chronic anxiety. However, if the child feels that his parents are unconditionally committed to his welfare, he can then relax and explore the world without fear; otherwise he has to allocate psychic energy to his own protection, thereby reducing the amount he can freely dispose of. Early emotional security may well be one of the conditions that helps develop an autotelic personality in children. Without this, it is difficult to let go of the self long enough to experience flow.

Love without strings attached does not mean, of course, that relationships should have no standards, no punishment for breaking the rules. When there is no risk attached to transgressing rules they become meaningless, and without meaningful rules an activity cannot be enjoyable. Children must know that parents expect certain things from them, and that specific consequences will follow if they don"t obey. But they must also recognize that no matter what happens, the parents" concern for them is not in question.

When a family has a common purpose and open channels of communication, when it provides gradually expanding opportunities for action in a setting of trust, then life in it becomes an enjoyable flow activity. Its members will spontaneously focus their attention on the group relationship, and to a certain extent forget their individual selves, their divergent goals, for the sake of experiencing the joy of belonging to a more complex system that joins separate consciousnesses in a unified goal.

One of the most basic delusions of our time is that home life takes care of itself naturally, and that the best strategy for dealing with it is to relax and let it take its course. Men especially like to comfort themselves with this notion. They know how hard it is to succeed on the job, how much effort they have to put into their careers. So at home they just want to unwind, and feel that any serious demand from the family is unwarranted. They often have an almost superst.i.tious faith in the integrity of the home. Only when it is too late-when the wife has become dependent on alcohol, when the children have turned into cold strangers-do many men wake up to the fact that the family, like any other joint enterprise, needs constant investments of psychic energy to a.s.sure its existence.

To play the trumpet well, a musician cannot let more than a few days pa.s.s without practicing. An athlete who does not run regularly will soon be out of shape, and will no longer enjoy running. Any manager knows that his company will start falling apart if his attention wanders. In each case, without concentration, a complex activity breaks down into chaos. Why should the family be different? Unconditional acceptance, the complete trust family members ought to have for one another, is meaningful only when it is accompanied by an unstinting investment of attention. Otherwise it is just an empty gesture, a hypocritical pretense indistinguishable from disinterest.

ENJOYING FRIENDS.

"The worst solitude," wrote Sir Francis Bacon, "is to be dest.i.tute of sincere friendship." Compared to familial relationships, friendships are much easier to enjoy. We can choose our friends, and usually do so, on the basis of common interests and complementary goals. We need not change ourselves to be with friends; they reinforce our sense of self instead of trying to transform it. While at home there are many boring things we have to accept, like taking out the garbage and raking up leaves, with friends we can concentrate on things that are "fun."

It is not surprising that in our studies of the quality of daily experience it has been demonstrated again and again that people report the most positive moods overall when they are with friends. This is not only true of teenagers: young adults also are happier with friends than with anyone else, including their spouses. Even retirees are happier when they are with friends than when they are with their spouses or families.

Because a friendship usually involves common goals and common activities, it is "naturally" enjoyable. But like any other activity, this relationship can take a variety of forms, ranging from the destructive to the highly complex. When a friendship is primarily a way of validating one"s own insecure sense of self, it will give pleasure, but it will not be enjoyable in our sense-that of fostering growth. For instance, the inst.i.tution of "drinking buddies," so prevalent in small communities all over the world, is a pleasant way for adult males to get together with men they have known all their lives. In the congenial atmosphere of tavern, pub, osteria osteria, beer hall, tearoom, or coffee shop, they grind the day away playing cards, darts, or checkers while arguing and teasing one another. Meanwhile everyone feels his existence validated by the reciprocal attention paid to one another"s ideas and idiosyncrasies. This type of interaction keeps at bay the disorganization that solitude brings to the pa.s.sive mind, but without stimulating much growth. It is rather like a collective form of television watching, and although it is more complex in that it requires partic.i.p.ation, its actions and phrases tend to be rigidly scripted and highly predictable.

Socializing of this kind mimics friendship relations, but it provides few of the benefits of the real thing. Everyone takes pleasure in occasionally pa.s.sing the time of day chatting, but many people become extremely dependent on a daily "fix" of superficial contacts. This is especially true for individuals who cannot tolerate solitude, and who have little emotional support at home.

Teenagers without strong family ties can become so dependent on their peer group that they will do anything to be accepted by it. About twenty years ago in Tucson, Arizona, the entire senior cla.s.s of a large high school knew for several months that an older dropout from the school, who had kept up a "friendship" with the younger students, had been killing their cla.s.smates, and burying their corpses in the desert. Yet none of them reported the crimes to the authorities, who discovered them by chance. The students, all nice middle-cla.s.s suburban kids, claimed that they could not divulge the murders for fear of being cut by their friends. If those Tucson teenagers had had warm family ties, or strong links to other adults in the community, ostracization by their peers would not have been so intolerable. But apparently only the peer group stood between them and solitude. Unfortunately, this is not an unusual story; now and then one very much like it appears in the media.

If the young person feels accepted and cared for at home, however, dependence on the group is lessened, and the teenager can learn to be in control of his relationships with peers. Christopher, who at fifteen was a rather shy, quiet boy with gla.s.ses and few friends, felt close enough to his parents to explain that he was tired of being left out of the cliques in school, and had decided to become more popular. To do so, Chris outlined a carefully planned strategy: he was to buy contact lenses, wear only fashionable (i.e., funky) clothes, learn about the latest music and teenage fads, and highlight his hair with a blond dye. "I want to see if I can change my personality," he said, and spent many days in front of the mirror practicing a laid-back demeanor and a goofy smile.

This methodical approach, supported by his parents" collusion, worked well. By the end of the year he was being invited into the best cliques, and the following year he won the part of Conrad Birdie in the school musical. Because he identified with the part of the rock star so well, he became the heartthrob of middle-school girls, who taped his picture inside their lockers. The senior yearbook showed him involved in all sorts of successful ventures, such as winning a prize in the "s.e.xy Legs" contest. He had indeed succeeded in changing his outward personality, and achieved control of the way his peers saw him. At the same time, the inner organization of his self remained the same: he continued to be a sensitive, generous young man who did not think less of his peers because he learned to manage their opinions or think too highly of himself for having succeeded at it.

One of the reasons Chris was able to become popular while many others do not is that he approached his goal with the same detached discipline that an athlete would use to make the football team, or a scientist would apply to an experiment. He was not overwhelmed by the task, but chose realistic challenges he could master on his own. In other words, he transformed the daunting, vague monster of popularity into a feasible flow activity that he ended up enjoying while it gave him a sense of pride and self-esteem. The company of peers, like every other activity, can be experienced at various levels: at the lowest level of complexity it is a pleasurable way to ward off chaos temporarily; at the highest it provides a strong sense of enjoyment and growth.

It is in the context of intimate friendships, however, that the most intense experiences occur. These are the kinds of ties about which Aristotle wrote, "For without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods." To enjoy such one-to-one relationships requires the same conditions that are present in other flow activities. It is necessary not only to have common goals and to provide reciprocal feedback, which even interactions in taverns or at c.o.c.ktail parties provide, but also to find new challenges in each other"s company. These may amount simply to learning more and more about the friend, discovering new facets of his or her unique individuality, and disclosing more of one"s own individuality in the process. There are few things as enjoyable as freely sharing one"s most secret feelings and thoughts with another person. Even though this sounds like a commonplace, it in fact requires concentrated attention, openness, and sensitivity. In practice, this degree of investment of psychic energy in a friendship is unfortunately rare. Few are willing to commit the energy or the time for it.

Friendships allow us to express parts of our beings that we seldom have the opportunity to act out otherwise. One way to describe the skills that every man and woman has is to divide them in two cla.s.ses: the instrumental instrumental and the and the expressive expressive. Instrumental skills are the ones we learn so that we can cope effectively with the environment. They are basic survival tools, like the cunning of the hunter or the craft of the workman, or intellectual tools, like reading and writing and the specialized knowledge of the professional in our technological society. People who have not learned to find flow in most of the things they undertake generally experience instrumental tasks as extrinsic-because they do not reflect their own choices, but are requirements imposed from the outside. Expressive skills, on the other hand, refer to actions that attempt to externalize our subjective experiences. Singing a song that reflects how we feel, translating our moods into a dance, painting a picture that represents our feelings, telling a joke we like, and going bowling if that is what makes us feel good are forms of expression in this sense. When involved in an expressive activity we feel in touch with our real self. A person who lives only by instrumental actions without experiencing the spontaneous flow of expressivity eventually becomes indistinguishable from a robot who has been programmed by aliens to mimic human behavior.

In the course of normal life there are few opportunities to experience the feeling of wholeness expressivity provides. At work one must behave according to the expectations for one"s role, and be a competent mechanic, a sober judge, a deferent waiter. At home one has to be a caring mother or a respectful son. And in between, on the bus or the subway, one has to turn an impa.s.sive face to the world. It is only with friends that most people feel they can let their hair down and be themselves. Because we choose friends who share our ultimate goals, these are the people with whom we can sing, dance, share jokes, or go bowling. It is in the company of friends that we can most clearly experience the freedom of the self and learn who we really are. The ideal of a modern marriage is to have one"s spouse as a friend. In previous times, when marriages were arranged for the mutual convenience of families, this was considered an impossibility. But now that there are fewer extrinsic pressures to get married, many people claim that their best friend is their spouse.

Friendship is not enjoyable unless we take up its

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