The Power of Autotelic Experiences: Find Flow and Meaning

“The key element to optimal experience is that it is an end in and of itself.” — Flow, p. 67.

The term autotelic comes from the Greek words auto, self, and telos, goal. Autotelic activities are self-contained and performed without expectation of future benefit. For instance:

Creating content to merely gain popularity isn’t autotelic. Doing it to prove your skills and be creative is. Similarly, coding just to land a high-paying job isn’t autotelic. Programming because you genuinely love it is.

Autotelic experiences enrich our lives in profound ways. Besides providing sheer enjoyment, they allow us to:

• Reach higher states of consciousness;
• Increase our minds’ capabilities;
• Be free from the entropy of mundane existence;
• Align with primary cosmic principles;
• Expand beyond self-imposed limitations;

In this one, we’ll explore these, plus a few tactics to make your life more autotelic.

For those new to my work, I go by the name of POTB. I am a creator focusing on topics like psychology, philosophy, human potential, and creativity. When they make sense, I incorporate Esoteric perspective(s), and I (always) strive to make my content aesthetically pleasing. Recently, I (also) began incorporating discussions of the tools I use. So stick around if that sounds interesting! If it doesn’t, don’t.

Autoletic Experiences

Autotelic experiences go hand-in-hand with intrinsic motivation. We engage in an activity (purely) for the inherent satisfaction and fulfillment it provides. External rewards don’t matter.

Autotelic experiences were popularized by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who described them as moments of Flow. As covered later, in those, we are fully immersed, (maximally) enjoying the task at hand.

Exotelic Experiences

Exotelic experiences are (basically) the opposite. Tied to extrinsic motivation, these can be anything done for a specific outcome, including:

• Making money;
• Getting approval (or social validation, etc);

Most activities aren’t (wholly) autotelic or exotelic but a combination of both. For creators, the first can be scripting, filming broll, and editing. The second is setting your shot and presenting it in front of a camera. Or vice versa.

For experienced gym rats, it can be hitting the gym. Presumably, you (already) look great and enjoy bodybuilding. Nonetheless, you strive to improve your physique.

Mastery

Autotelic experience(s) are seldom readily available; they are enabled as a byproduct of relentless skill acquisition and improvement actually driven by extrinsic motivation. It is your degree of mastery and preliminary dedication that unlocks them.

“Most enjoyable activities are not natural; they demand an effort that initially one is reluctant to make. But once the interaction starts to provide feedback to the person’s skills, it usually begins to be intrinsically rewarding.”
— Flow. P.68

While exceptions can be enjoying a landscape (or sunset), Flow experiences happen within activity sequences. They:

1. Are impossible without skill(s).
2. Demand clear-cut goal(s) and investment of psychic energy (attention).

Takumis

A great example of individuals living ‘autotelic lives’ is the Japanese takumis. The word Takumi (匠) translates to “artisan” or “skilled.” It symbolizes craftsmanship and excellence.

Takumis refine their skills to an incredible mastery. They spend their time flowing and, as a result, (actually) live longer.

From porcelain and gadget makers to animators, the book IKIGAI gives them as an example to inspire, whereas Steve Jobs (actually) studied them when building Apple.

Flow

“(…) we found every flow activity, whether it involved in a competition, chance, or any other dimension of experience, had this in common: It provided a sense of discovery, a creative feeling of transporting the person into a new reality. It pushed the person to higher levels of performance and led to previously undreamed stages of consciousness. In short it transformed the self by making it more complex. In this growth of the self lies the key to flow activities.”
—Flow P. 74

Neither boredom nor anxiety are positive experiences. Flow happens between both. Reality’s challenges are not too easy to bore and make us quit, nor too challenging to invoke stress and (also) make us give up.

They are in a perfect balance keeping us entangled with it, which esoteric schools call ‘love under Will, we’ll discuss in a moment. The more entangled we stay, the more the Universe provides new challenges to overcome and develop.

The Universe is Playing You

Speaking of mastery and the Universe, here are two concepts worth considering together.

Esoterically, the Universe unites different aspects of itself under its own rules, renovating with new aggregates of experiences your progress. Cross-culturally, the genius DJ Qbert, the ultimate turntablist to ever live, says:

“The turntable is not the instrument. You are the instrument, and the Universe is playing you!”

According to his crewmate, the one and only D-Styles:

“You are just in there.”

To a student of Qabalistic psychology and turntablism this sounds like flowing within the constraints the Universe provides.

Pleasure vs Enjoyment

Most people alternate meaningless work they’re paid to do with meaningless activities of ‘pleasure’ and ‘leisure.’ The first can be a dead-end nine-to-five, school, or getting a degree. The second:

• Drugs and Booze;
• Frequent eating;
• Fapping;
• Scrolling;
• Hanging with people you don’t care about;
• Trying to prove something to the same.

Both groups rob you of your psychic energy, and neither develops you. They provide no meaningful challenges or opportunities to improve. There’s also no joy.

Esoterically, those and the people doing them can be viewed as parts of the darkness of the star goddess’s body.

According to Csikszentmihalyi, the second group makes life pass as a dull and anxious sequence of experiences over which you have no control. Everything is random, causing you to lose yourself in the inertia of the masses.

Now. While pleasure-conducive experiences can also be enjoyable, the two sensations are much different. Not requiring attention or skills, pleasure is available to anyone at any time. Conversely, enjoyment entirely depends on those.

Self-Complexity

Flow experiences elevate our existence to new heights. They provide structure, replacing hopelessness and boredom with a sense of control, purpose, and enjoyment. They free us from randomness and service of external goals.

They make us achieve what Gurdjieff called ‘higher states of being.’ A concept stressed by Don Webb influenced by both, Gurdjieff and Csikszentmihalyi.

“When experience is intrinsically rewarding, life is justified in the present, instead of being held hostage to a hypothetical future gain.”
— Flow

Autotelic experiences make us forget all unpleasant aspects of life. The reason is that, unlike purely pleasurable, enjoyable activities require a complete focus of attention. They leave no space for all irrelevant to the task at hand, which can be:

• Writing;
• Playing;
• Producing;
• Drawing or designing, etc;

Letting a reduced range of information into awareness makes the present more enjoyable. It enables us to improve our skills and contribute to the advancement of humanity.

“The self becomes complex as a result of experiencing Flow. Paradoxically, it is when we act freely, for the sake of the action itself rather than for ulterior motives, that we learn to become more than what we were. When we choose a goal and invest ourselves in it to the limit of our concentration, whatever we do will be enjoyable. And once we have tasted this joy, we will redouble our efforts to taste it again.”
— Flow

Autotelic Activities

Mentioning control, Flow experiences may seem to involve exerting plenty. Actually, during them, you don’t worry about losing control typical (or necessary) for a situation.

Autotelic activities are designed to make optimal experiences readily achievable. As covered, this includes:

• Rules and regulations;
• The necessity of skills;
• Clear-cut goals.

Distinguishing an activity from the mundane existence, they are part of what makes the experience unique.

Saturn

Esoterically, the Autotelic experiences have to do with Binah, the Sphere of Saturn;

1. They let us overcome entropy, randomness, and the not-so-favorable inertia of the Universe, all governed by Saturn.
2. They require peak focus and not paying attention to anything else, Saturn.
3. They can only happen under set rules and regulations, which is also Saturn, as stressed by scholars David Shoemaker and Mark Stavish.
4. The rules and regulations direct our attention just like Binah provides a form to the Force of Chokmah.

Love Under Will

Flow states bring psychic negentropy (order), letting us overcome nature’s chaos. So you can think of it as both aspects of Saturn, Binah, the sphere of Babalon, who is Nuit. Flow states are (sometimes) explained as Love Under Will and vice versa. Especially considering Csiszenkmihaly and Peter J Carrol regard attention as an expression of Chiah the Life Force, Hadit.

We have the totality of experiences, including chaos and order in the face of rules, regulations, goals, and feedback, Nuit. We also have their single point perceiver, your life force expressing through attention, Hadit. Let me know your thoughts.

Psycho-Cybernetics

Deep Flow makes us lose our egos in something greater. This allows you to modify or remove preconceived notions and dogmas, expanding what Psycho-Cybernetics defines as your ‘self-image.’

For those unfamiliar, that is the narrative or the concept you have about yourself. The blueprint of who you think yourself to be. Whatever its boundaries, you act within them. Hence, Maxwell Maltz, Psycho-Cybernetics inventor, says (paraphrasing):

“Those perceiving themselves as failure will always fail, whereas those viewing themselves as a success will ultimately succeed.”

Your self-image is like a box beyond which flow states help you expand. Technically, you are (also) aligned with the principle of cybernetics as you persevere toward a goal, navigating through regulations and feedback like a missile. Let me know if you agree.

“(…) being able to forget temporarily who we are seems to be very enjoyable. When not preoccupied with ourselves, we actually have a chance to expand the concept of who we are. Loss of self-consciousness can lead to self-transcendence, to a feeling that the boundaries of our being have being pushed forward…”— Flow. P.64

Considering this, I believe Flow lets us tap into the higher realms of Atziluth and Briah, attributed to Fire and Water and associated with pre-formative states. They allow us to reform our self-images and personal limitations.

Chessed and Geburah

This alludes to the principles of Chessed and Geburah. The first is expansion beyond limitations. The second elimination of what doesn’t serve a purpose.

Practioners might find external expansion happens (only if) they eliminate purposeless fluff from their internal world. And when moving in the Tree from bottom to top, Geburah (actually) comes first. Let me know if that’s you. Also, think of the Tower card. You cannot build anything significant on a rotten or crappy base.

Flow states balance Geburah’s discipline and Chessed’s expansiveness, creating a unique state of freedom within boundaries. Being Binah on a ‘lower arc,’ Geburah trims distractions. Chessed (Chokmah or a lower arc) allows the self to transcend its limitations. Once more, we have controlled focus and expansive creativity unified in (moments of) transformative growth.

Entities

Sustaining Flow for long enough can result in a sense of connecting to/uniting with entities, who Chicsentmihaly calls ‘the Other,’ whereas esotericist ‘spirits.’ No matter how solitary ‘autotelic activities’ connect you to the group mind (egregore) of the people involved in them.

The term egregore is derived from the Greek’ egregoros,’ meaning ‘wakeful’ or ‘watcher.’ According to Mark Stavish, that is:

“… a home or conduit for specific psychic intelligence of a nonhuman nature connecting the invisible dimensions with the material world…””(…) an autonomous psychic entity composed of and influencing the thoughts of a group of people…”
— Mark Stavish. Egregores

According to French Freemason Robert Abmelain, an egregore is:

“a Force generated by powerful spiritual currents and subsequently nourished at regular intervals in harmony with (…) the Cosmos, or by a gathering of entities united by a shared characteristic..”
— Robert Abmelain

Egregores’ physical bodies are the members of groups, cultures, ideologies, companies, etc.

• For surgeons, that may be the group of participants directly involved in the operation(s).
• For solitary sailors or musicians, all others doing their craft.
• For coders, their team

In the words of Csiszenkmihaly, there’s nothing mystical in that.

“When a person invests all her psychic energy into an interaction—whether it is with another person, a boat, a mountain, or a piece of music—she, in effect, becomes part of a system of action greater than what the individual self had been before. This system takes its form from the rules of the activity; its energy comes from the person’s attention. But it is a real system—subjectively as real as being part of a family, a corporation, or a team—and the self that is part of it expands its boundaries and becomes more complex than what it had been.”
— Flow. P.65

The Qabalistic term for a particular Sephirothic entity is ‘intelligence.’ According to Mix Master Mike, scratching is another form of intelligence the turntablist communicates with. According to Qbert, all turntablists are connected like Jedi by the Force.

In his best-selling Modern Magick, Donald Michael Kraig stresses that more profound understanding can only be obtained through higher realm entities, which is all about practicing but apparently isn’t limited to ritual. It actually involves your autotelic activities. The more you practice building your skills, the more that applies.

Logotherapy

Engaging in activities for their own sake finds common grounds with Logotherapy’s primary goal: identifying and living a self-determined purpose.

Hence why, Ikigai scholars emphasize the importance of Flow and taking notes from Frankl to live your Ikigai. Logotherapy looks into the future, whereas Flow is all about the now. Nevertheless, they complement each other in various ways:

• Both defy the psychoanalytic notion that past experiences and desire for pleasure control us. It is the desire for meaning, growth, and enjoyment that really drives us.
• Frankl says that to those living purposefully, the past is a collection of potentialities turned realities. Apparently, the moments of Flow let that conversion take place. For him, it was writing the manuscript that kept them focused, alive, and substantially isolated from the horrors of the concentration camps. Let me know what it is for you. And, now let’s cover a few tactics to help make your life more ‘autotelic.’

Practical Tips 1

1. Challenges: Pick activities that are just hard enough to make you stretch but not so hard to overwhelm you. Such a sweet spot keeps you engaged, letting you develop.
2. Mental vs Physical: Identify what activities make you flow more easily. For some, those are primarily mental; for others, physical or a bit of both.
3. Curiosity: To help with the former, become a lifelong learner. Instead of focusing on outcomes, engage your childlike curiosity.
4. Reflect on Purpose: Ensure your ‘flow activities’ align with what Frankl called meaning or purpose. This puts your autotelic experiences on steroids. Knowing you turn your potential into reality while enriching the Universe guarantees long-term engagement.
5. No Reward, No Punishment: If that’s new to you, learn to engage in activities purely because of them and not to make more money, increase status, or whatever. Said differently, cultivate intrinsic motivation.

Practical Tips 2

1. No Distractions: Set time aside and create an environment with no interruptions. Put your phone in airplane mode and use Pomodoro apps like the one actually named ‘Flow.’ Not sponsored. If needed, limit your options to prevent willpower depletion and decision fatigue from sabotaging your problem-solving.
2. Optimize Your Body: Distractions aren’t limited to notifications and life’s randomness. Mental and physical fatigue, mindless hunger, and cravings for sex could be even worse. So rather than considering nootropics, avail of the transformative powers of:

• OMAD;
• NoFap;
• Ancestral Eating;
• Daily Exercise, etc
• While beyond the scope of this post, to me, these are non-negotiables without which I’d never be able to build my skills and ability to focus.

1. Reverse-Engineer: If needed dedicate time to reverse engineer something or build a tangible plan to up your skills. Ask yourself: What would be the most readily accessible way for you to master something?
2. Еmbrace Failure: Rather than fearing it, consider failure as guiding feedback. An approach or technique not working out is merely a signal to adjust or try another.
3. Build Skills: As we covered, without skills, there’s no Flow. Regular practice of your chosen activities is also non-negotiable. The better your skills, the more complex and meaningful challenges the Universe unfolds, which are, in fact, ‘deeper mysteries.’

But that’s just my opinion. Let me know if you agree. Consider subscribing to the channel. Check the links in the description. And thank you for your time.