Life is so fully of wonderful surprises. How can one find out if someone is autotelic (of an activity or creative work; having an end or purpose in itself)? The best method is to observe a person over a long period of time, in many different situations. A short test of the kind psychologist use is not very appropriate, in part because flow is such a subjective experience that it would be relatively easy for a person to fake his or her responses. A prolonged interview or questionnaire may help, but I prefer to use a more indirect measure. According to the theory, individuals should be in flow when they perceive both the challenges in a given situation and their skills to be high. So one way of measuring how autotelic an individual is, is by computing the frequency with which they report being in a high-challenge, high-skill situation over a week of paging with the Experience Sampling Method. We find that there are people who report being in this situation over 70 percent of the time, and other less than 10 percent. We assume that the former are more autotelic than the latter. Using this method, we can look at what distinguishes people whose experiences are mainly autotelic from those who rarely experience this state.

For instance, in one study we took a group of two hundred very talented teenagers, and divided them into two groups: fifty whose frequency of high-challenges, high-skill responses during the week was in the upper quartile (the “autotelic” group), and contrasted them with fifty who were in the lower quartile (the “non-autotelic” group). Then we asked the question: Are these two groups of adolescents using their time in different ways? The most significant contrasts between the two groups: Autotelic teenagers spent 45 percent of their working hours studying, 30 percent watching TV, 20 percent on hobbies, and 5 percent on sports. Non-autotelic teenagers spent 55 percent of their day watching TV, 20 percent studying, 20 percent on hobbies, and 5 percent on sports. Clearly an important dimension of what it means to be autotelic is what one does with one’s time. Passive leisure and entertainment do not provide much opportunity to exercise one’s skills. One learns to experience flow by getting involved in activities that are more suited to provide it, namely, mental work and active leisure. However, is the quality of experience of autotelic youngsters better than that of their peers? After all, the fact that they do more challenging thins is in part true by definition, since we defined being autotelic as being often in challenging situations.

The real question is whether being often in flow-producing situations actually improves subjective experiences. The answer is yes. The results how that when involved in productive activities, the first group concentrates significantly more, has a significantly higher self-esteem, and sees what they are doing as very significantly more important for their future goals. However, the two groups are not significantly different in terms of enjoyment or happiness. How about the quality of experience in active leisure? First of all, as one would expect, in leisure all teens report higher enjoyment and happiness than they do in productive activities; however, they concentrate less and feel that what they do is less important for their future goals. The comparisons between the groups, except for happiness, are all statistically significant. Autotelic youngsters concentrate more, enjoy themselves more, have higher self-esteem, and see what they do as more related to their future goals. All of this fits what we would expect, except one thing. Why are they not happier? What I have learned from doing research is that self-reported happiness is not a very good indicator of the quality of a person’s life. Some people say they are happy even when their home life is nonexistent, when they spend all their time in meaningless activities.

We are resilient beings, and apparently we are able to avoid feeling sad even when all the conditions suggest otherwise. If we cannot say we are at least somewhat happy, what is the point of going on? Autotelic individuals are not necessarily happier, but they are involved in more complex activities, and they feel better about themselves as a result. It is not enough to be happy to have an excellent life. The point is to be happy while doing things that stretch our skills, that help us grow and fulfill our potential. This is especially true in the early years: A teenager who feels happy doing nothing is unlikely to grow into a happy adult. Let to fend for themselves too early, young people can easily become insecure and defensive. It could be argued, in fact, that the more complex the adult World in which they have to find a place, the longer a period of dependence an adolescent requires in order to prepare for it. Of course this “social neoteny” only works if the family is a relatively complex unit that provides stimulation as well as support; it would not help a child to stay dependent on a dysfunctional family.

Other things being equal, a life filled with complex flow activities is more worth living than one spent consuming passive entertainment. In the words of Matthew describing what his career means to him: “To be totally absorbed in what you are doing and to enjoy it so much that you do not want to be doing anything else—I do not see how people survive if they do not experience something like that. My life and career interest me. It is a source of satisfaction. Achieving something that one thing is important. Without such a consciousness or motivation, it seems to me that life could be rather dull and purposeless, and I would not want to attempt that kind of life. Of course, leisure, say, having absolutely nothing to do that one felt was worth doing—that strikes me as a rather desperate situation to be in.”  When we are able to confront life with such involvement and enthusiasm, we can be said to have achieved an autotelic personality. Autotelic is a word composed of two Greek roots: auto (self) and telos (goal). An autotelic activity is one we do for its own sake because to experience t is the main goal. For instance, if I played a game of Trente et Quarante or Rogue et Noir primarily to enjoy the game, that game would be an autotelic experience for me; whereas if I played for money, or to achieve a competitive ranking in the winning row, the same games would be primarily exotelic, that is, motivated by an outside goal. Applied to personality, autotelic denotes an individual who generally does things for their own sake, rather than in order to achieve some later external goal.  

Of course, most people are not fully autotelic, because we all have to do things even if we do not enjoy them, either out of a sense of duty or necessity. However, there is a gradation, ranging from individuals who almost never feel that what they do is worth doing for its own sake, to others who feel that most anything they do is important and valuable in its own right. It is to these latter individuals that the term autotelic applies. An autotelic person requires few material possessions and little entertainment, comfort, power, or fame because so many persons experience flow in work, in family life, when interacting with people, when eating, and even when alone with nothing to do, they are less dependent on the external rewards that keep other motivated to go on with a life composed of dull meaningless routines. Autotelic individuals are more autonomous and independent, because they cannot be as easily manipulated with threats nor rewards from the outside. At the same time, they are more involved with everything around them because they are fully immersed in the current of life. Courage is perhaps the central attribute of a hero. The word courage is derived from the Latin cor, meaning “Heart.” (In French the word for heart is coeur.) We say of a brave man that he has heart; we speak of a fighter’s heart; we day of a man who has given up that he has lost heart. In courage, our blood may run cold for a while, but it is running—and as we persist, it will heat up, flowing more and more strongly, heartening and encouraging us. To truly be a man has long been linked to being courageous.  

The opposite of courage is cowardice; its shadow recklessness.  Courage is not fearlessness, but a resolute refusal to be paralyzed by fear, a deliberate turning and moving toward the dragon, step by conscious step, an activation of our will to persist in difficult conditions. It is the very hearts of heroism. Courage may falter and lose steam, but it does not quit, unless quitting is the more fitting and courageous. Without risk there is no courage. Without fear there is no courage. Without challenging circumstances, there is no courage. We have to be brave and to persevere in that bravery, moving toward our edge in a particular circumstance, navigating the discomfort of doing so with resolve. However, much we might want to give up, but we do not. Though no one else may recognize our struggle, we go on, even if we are on our hands and knees. Courage does not always look like courage, in the process, at least it is commonly portrayed—but when we are being courageous, we do not have to care how we look. We just keep going, again and again finding the optimal pace. To have courage is not only heart, but also guts, intestinal fortitude, and spine. As such, courage is about taking embodied action no matter how much our knees night be shaking. And there is a kind of love implicit in courage, the love of our own integrity, our standing up for what really matters. However small the impact of our courage may be, it nonetheless radiates out, touching more than we can imagine.  

Nonetheless, courage is not the same as aggression. Courage does not mean you go around forcing your will onto people, but it may mean standing up for someone or yourself. Within societies, there is an interplay between affiliative behaviors, which promote group cohesion, and aggressive behaviors, which can lead to group disruption. Conflict within a group frequently develops out of competition for resources, including mating partners and food items and land. Instead of actual attacks or fighting, most intragroup aggression occurs in the form of various signals and displays, frequently within the context of a dominance hierarchy. Therefore, the majority of tense situations are resolved through various submissive and appeasement behaviors.  Competition between males for mates frequently results in injury and even death. In species that have a distinct breeding season, conflict between males is most common during that time. Males who form coalitions to compete with other males, and when outright fighting occurs, injury can be severe. In species not restricted to a mating season, competition between males can be an ongoing process. Not all individuals are territorial. However, some men are highly intolerant of unfamiliar people, especially other males, and they fiercely defend their territories and recourses. Therefore, when other cultures enter an area, they may try to enforce their dominance by asserting aggression, chasing, and actually fighting.  

 Starting in 2007, investigators witnessed at least five unprovoked and extremely brutal attacks by groups of thugs on other individuals. Brutal adult males usually attack lone individuals. Although it is not possible to know what exactly motivated the attackers, it was clear that they intended to incapacitate their victims. Although experts may never understand why these aggressive males are power forcing and attack males who may have a different skin tone, background, or features, it may never be fully explained what the problem really is, but it appears that acquiring and protecting resources (including money, land, and females or males) are involved. Of course, conflict is not just seen in the men. For example, high-ranking females frequently intimidate, harass, and even attack others, who they perceive to have a lower ranking to keep them away from food or mates. Dominant females consistently stalk and chase subordinates away food and mates, and even have been observed to take food from their mouths, their money, or even hold their spouse “hostage” through extortion, intimidation, and threats. Eventually, these actions can cause weight loss, loneliness, poor nutrition, in the intended targets and reduce their reproductive success. Conflict is not always resolved peacefully, and it can have serious consequences.   

 Many intentional behaviors also serve as communications. These include a wide variety of gestures, facial expressions, and vocalizations. Among many, a mild threat is indicated by an intense stare, and indeed, we humans find prolonged eye contact with strangers very uncomfortable. Other gestures are a quick yawn to expose canine teeth; and clapping hands during an argument and even sharking another person. They also use a wide array of vocalizations to make in known they are dominating in the area, and sometimes the aggressors may grunt or say offensive things to let you know they are predators. They may also engage in slapping their own chest and vandalism. Nonetheless, communication is important, for it truly is what makes social living possible. The behaviors listed above are more common forms of communication from animals, not humans. However, it is not appropriate for humans to display animalistic warfare tactics and smuggler language because a sane person is often not allowed to respond to irrational behavior. Many are saying that this type of behavior, displayed by the intergroup conflict may be inherited from animals, and that is why it is suspected some men have a common ancestor with primates, which is why they have a predisposition to behavior common among chimpanzees and gorillas. Whereas civilized men are seen as God’s people.  

When you are a child, adults allow you to play because it has at least two functions. The first is simply enjoyment for its own sake. Secondly, play enables us to learn patterns of enjoyment that continue through life, changing only in the forms or rules of the game. Of course, being able to play is an indication that you are relatively free of inhibitions, restraints, hang-ups, or fears. If you see this freedom as beneficial, as an indicator of liking yourself, it can have all sorts of wonderful carry-overs into your attitudes about yourself as an adult. Liking yourself tends to have a snowballing effect: it builds on itself, just as disliking or hating yourself can do. From eternity to eternity, my life flows along its way of peace and harmony. Time brings but more glory to crown me with its pleasures. My life is forever. Perhaps you read the last paragraph and smiled, saying grimly, “Yeah, I remember the fun I has as a kid. However, I had to grow up!” Emphasis on that “had to” quality is important here. It means “growing up” was not just a natural process of maturing and developing. Somehow, the idea was communicated to you that childhood is one thing, and adulthood something entirely different. The difficulties many of us have in letting go and relaxing, playing and enjoying, often come from that very fact. As a child, I thought, felt, played, and did as a child. However, now I am at a different stage, in a different segment of life, a different World. I have to give up immature behaviors and so things as adults do. #RandolphHarris 1 of 3

I see no evil; I behold only the good. I have seen the drunkard lying in the gutter, and the saint kneeling in ecstasy before the high altar of his faith; but I have found no difference. I see no evil; I behold only the good. I have seen the drunkard lying in the gutter, and the saint kneeling in ecstasy before the high altar of his faith; but I have found no difference. I have perceived that each, in his own tongue, is seeking to express the one life. I will not separate and divide; I cannot condemn nor censure, for I know that there is but one in all. I know and love all. When there is reason to think that we are appreciated, job satisfaction is usually high; whereas the greatest sources of stress in the workplace is the feeling that no one is interested in supporting our goals. Infighting among coworkers, inability to communicate with superiors and subordinates are the bane of most jobs. The core of interpersonal conflicts is the often the excessive concern for oneself, and an inability to pay attention to the requirements of others. It is sad to see how often individuals ruin a relationship because they refuse to recognize that they could serve their own interest best by helping others achieve their goals. Cutting through this bind begins with developing compassion for our weaknesses, viewing them not as liabilities, but as gold that just requires a little polishing. Consider emotional literacy, an essential part of authentic relational intimacy.  #RandolphHarris 2 of 3

We may know that we lack in it—being far from at home with our emotions—but once we stop shaming ourselves for this lack, and view it with some compassion, we can begin working with it, honoring ourselves for being beginners, rather than shaming ourselves for not already being competent in this area. As part of our learning here, we can take a fresh look at our history with emotional know-how, seeing how it very likely was given no significant priority at home or school.  We probably were preoccupied with other seemingly more relevant hurdles than knowing our emotions, such as getting better grades or toughening up or impressing our social circle. It is very helpful to realize that the things we are required to do to have better relationships are the very things we are required to do to further our own growth and evolution. There are such riches in genuinely caring for other people and in doing things to facilitate mutual respect. When individuals feel as if they belong, they are able to provide support and help to other members of society. It matters to the young man who is isolated at home, but finds camaraderie at a park. It matters to the father who is trying to the father who is trying to find a way to bond with his growing son, and one of the few things they agree on is to watch 2 Broke Girls together. We are so fortunate as a society to have outstanding people who care about the goals and feelings of others.  Strength and drive beneficially coexist with transparency, vulnerability, and emotional literacy. #RandolphHarris 3 of 3

It is true, that, in the supposed interest of the child, the idea has been put forward is that that infant should be removed from its natural parents and placed in the hands of nurses skillfully trained in all the science and art of modern hygiene in general and puericulture in particular. Certainly it is possible to find innumerable parents who are completely and lamentably ignorant of this science and this art. This may be especially so in those lands like Russia, where the Platonic ideal is most commended. However, to be content to leave the mothers in ignorance and to train up in the knowledge of the duties of maternity a body of women who are not intended to be mothers, except for other women’s children, seems a perverted attempt to escape the difficulty. It is not calculated to benefit, and still less to render happy, the real mothers, the artificial mothers, or the children. An institution on so unreal a foundation cannot possibly compete with one on a sound biological basis which is just as susceptible to any necessary cultivation and development as the other. As Matthew R. Phillippe says, “social and cultural influences always endorse and emphasize the original individuality of the biological fact.” It is scarcely surprising that we find little indication that this artificial method is likely to be followed on any large scale, if at all. It seems only in place when we are concerned with motherless waifs and stays. The legitimate method of approaching the problem—as is constantly becoming more pervasively recognized—lies in training the real mothers, and, so far as possible, before they have begun to be mothers.

In our World, motherhood ceased to be inevitable fate of every woman who enters marriage and many who remain outside it. It may be said to have become a vocation. It is true that nearly every woman, at some period in her life, desires to become a mother, and that most men desire to become fathers, sometimes indeed without clearly realizing that fatherhood implies motherhood and that it is vastly more difficult task to be a mother than to be a father. However, it is a vocation which not all who are fitted by nature, and also by training, should attempt to follow it. In various countries now, and on an ever larger scale, efforts are being made to provide this training. The establishment of Schools for Mothers, in some countries facilitated by law, constitutes a notable step along this path. There are said to be some of these school still active in Europe and America. In England, Nursery schools for the pre-school child are slowly increasing, and with most of them are formed Clubs for Mothers, which are readily attended and furnish advice and instruction to mothers in the care of children. By such measures it is found that the sense of parental responsibility is not diminished, but increased. Businessmen know that even the most successful company needs constant attention, because external and internal conditions are always changing, and are required to be adjusted.

Entropy is a constant factor, and if it is not attended to, the company will dissolve. Yet many of them assume that families are somehow different—entropy cannot touch them and so they are immune to change. There were some grounds for such a belief when families were kept together by external bonds of social control, and by internal bonds of religious or ethical commitment.  Contractual obligations have the advantage of making relationships predictable and saving energy by excluding options and the requirement for constant negotiation. When marriage was supposed to be forever, it did not require constant effort to maintain. Now that the integrity of the family has become a matter of personal choice, it cannot survive except through the regular infusion of psychic energy. The new kind of family is very vulnerable unless it can provide intrinsic rewards to its members. When family interaction provides flow, it is in the self-interest of everyone to continue the relationship. Yet because families are taken so much for granted, few people have learned to transform the old ties that bound because of external obligations into ones that hold because of the enjoyment they provide. When parents come home exhausted from their jobs they hope that being with the family will be an effortless, relaxing, invigorating experience. However, to find flow in family relations requires as much skill as in other complex activity.

Matthew R. Phillippe says, “Shakespeare has played an extraordinary role in my family as a source of quotations and jokes and references which are fathomless. I feel that I am uncommonly lucky because we have had such a terribly good time together. It is always been an adventure and we have not come to the end yet. We have not finished talking, and I swear that conversation is more important than Netflix and Chill. The skill that made joint flow possible, in my family, is a common love and knowledge of literature. However, others may substitute television shows like 2 Broke Girls, Blackish, Empire, Supernatural, The View, or Grandfathered in the place of Shakespeare for more modern families.” Matthew R. Phillippe goes on to say, “My parents revived their relationship by starting to travel together and work on projects around the house. Others have given a rebirth to their relationship by gardening, breeding children, or starting book clubs. When people pay attention to each other, or to the same activity together, the chances of flow binding the family increases. Parenting is supposed to be one of the most rewarding experiences in life; but it is not, unless one approaches it with the same attention as one would a sport or an artistic performance. The psychic energy invested in a child’s growth can produce enjoyment in parenting. I work with my kids, and they seem to always discover something new.”

Recently Ava Phillippe got a role in Legally Blonde the play, following in her Oscar Award winning mother, Mrs. Reese Witherspoon’s footsteps. Matthew R. Phillippe responded by saying, “I am so proud of what Ava has accomplished, she did this herself, and I love the artistic work she has done, and she is also very proud of it. Her reading is another thing that she is really into, and we read together. She reads to me, and I read to her, and that is a time when I sort of lose touch with the rest of the World, I am totally absorbed in what I am doing. My son, Deacon, loves soccer, and I used to help coach his team and take him to all of his games. I am so proud of his athletic ability. We sometimes, also play catch with a football, but it is not a sport I want him to be involved in, there can be some serious bone fractures and concussion issues with football programs. I love my babies and want to keep them safe.” It sounds like Matthew R. Phillippe really loves his family, career, and life, in closing he tells us, “To experience such simple pleasures of parenting, one has to pay attention to what the child is proud of, what they are into; then one has to devote more attention to share those activities with them. Only when there is harmony between the goals of the participants, when everyone is investing psychic energy into a joint foal, does being together become enjoyable. I do not like to see things on purpose. I like them to soak in. A friend asked me to go to the top of the Empire State Building once, and I told him that he should not treat New York as a sight—it is a feeling, an emotional experience. And the same with every place else.”

An adult who knows how to play as a child does, without a sense of duty or compulsiveness interfering with his play, may be a better worker—whether employer or employee. He will know that work is only one part of living. He will be able to relax, pace his work so that stress and responsibility are balanced by rest and non-responsibility. If you play, but are not really used to it, or do not feel good about it, many difficulties await you. Most adults who have forgotten how to play (if they every learned), or what have put play down as OK but only for kids, will sneeringly think, “Who need it?” We all do! Since playing does not have to involve a lot of money or fancy equipment, we can recommend it with no fear of being labeled exploiters or opportunists. The most valuable secret about play is startlingly simple, and it is free. No coupon to clip and send in with $6.9 million to cover handling. You have to like yourself and enjoy being alive. Simple. It is fact, it is so simple and un-esoteric, we seem to hear the sound the spine of books snapping back all over the land! However, the fact is, many people do not like themselves and so not really enjoy being alive. Nonetheless, it is important to incorporate “Like yourself!” into your life, not only in order to be able to play, but also as a clue as to how to live with yourself and with other people. Just because your body grows up, it does not mean that you have to stop enjoying pleasure in life. If the external environment changed, a human’s activity patterns would also change to accommodate the new circumstances.

Expressing gratitude may be the first purpose of the day, one of the best ways to be romantic is bringing your spouse a cup of coffee, while they are in bed, to wake them up in the morning. Liveliness is a pleasant thing. Such a kind gesture will make anyone feel loved. Coffee in the morning gets the gold medal, it is the perfect way to warm up the body and provide you with a source of energy. It helps me feel loved, cherished, and I see the day with fresh eyes. Happy are they who are blessed with the power of making happy. Good fortune opens the hands as well as the heart wonderfully; and to give somewhat when we have largely received, is but to afford a vent to the unusual ebullition of the sensations. Colorful spring is the most charming season. I have so many words to say, but I do not know how to start. May deep blessing be around you day after day, year after year. In the feelings of the heart there can be no dissimulation. There is a beauty in the simplicity of nature which the most accomplished works of art can but faintly imitate. Beauty comes from love. Love is not a passion that degrades but exalts our nature.

From your words, I can hear a good heart beating strongly and see your ideal is glittering. You are steady and dependable like a monument craved of marble; your love is a master-key that opens the gates of happiness and gives knowledge to your lover’s heart. The measure of love is to have no mean, the end to be everlasting. Perfection does not exist; to understand it is the triumph of human intelligence. Let us learn to have the strength of confidence, the strength that will enable us to live forever in the aspiration for the better, and to return in act from the virtual World, but still, we require that aspiration of perfection. Love: an absorbing concentration on someone object, an intense movement to a single point, a gravitation of your whole being around a solitary centre. Formed by nature for love, the human heart sympathizes instinctively in the stars in Heaven. Virtue is God’s empire. If I had a fortune as large as my heart, there should not be one distressed person in the World. I am standing at the window quietly recalling past years in the distance. I find time is solidifying, nut you are the spotlight in the scenery. I write my blessing on the pictures with my heart. The poems are the words I want to speak to you. I am missing you silently. Keep the best things in memory and I give you my blessing. 

I pray that pleasant songs are always around you and bring you endless happiness. Genius and virtue are independent of rank and fortune. Poetry is not dead, nor genius lost, it takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and genius, especially ambitious young men and women. However, no change of condition can alter the sentiments of a generous heart. Memories bring us the past years with warmth. Year by year, trails and hardships; day by day sunrise and sunset.  How happy is the little stone that rambles in the road alone, and does not care about careers, and exigencies never fears, whose coat of elemental blue, and independent as the Sun. The people who render the World prosperous are those who are courageous in life and try to solve the new problems in life. My darling, may you be one of them.  The World likes a tender little boat, carries love, truth, kindness, youth, and beauty forever. Like the most beautiful flower in the World, love blooms in your heart and mine; may it never wither! Love is in our hearts, let us toast with a fresh cup of D’Amico coffee and wish you a healthy and happy life at Spring Festival.