Autotelic: A Person or Thing That Exists for Its Own Sake Rather Than Pursuing External Goals - Greek

On the flow state, intrinsic motivation, and some lucky(!) people

“Of all the virtues we can learn, no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge.”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

I'm surprised I've never heard of this word before; it's another feeling I've had but couldn't put into words, like Moledro. I didn't realize it, probably because I haven't read Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book on the flow state and have instead kept that masterpiece on my waiting list for months, if not years. Some books and movies, no matter how much they deserve it, are unable to capture the attention of their ignorant and slightly more lazy readers or audiences.

Anyway, I should get to the point before the number of things I need to explain grows too large.

The word for today is autotelic which I learned by Billy Oppenheimer’s recent post. It is derived etymologically from the Greek words auto (self) and telos (end). In other words, it is an adjective that means "having an end in itself."

An autotelic person is someone who does something solely for its own sake, for its own purpose, and for its own end. It may be something that has its own purpose, rather than an extrinsic goal or value. So a person (an autotelic character) can be autotelic, as can a thing or an activity.

Interesting? Let's go a little deeper now.

Photo by Anton Titov on Unsplash

Autotelic activities are those that are carried out without expecting anything in return. To run simply for the sake of running, with no intention of losing weight or strengthening our muscles. To write simply because we enjoy it, without the goal of winning a Nobel Prize or becoming as famous as J.K. Rowling.

These two sentences from the Cambridge Dictionary illustrates it quite well.

“The critic argued that James Joyce's "Ulysses" was an autotelic novel, the majority of its readership more interested in the book as an item of craft than as a means of conveying a story or message.”

“Some crimes are characterized as autotelic, committed not for any gain but for the thrill of seeing if the criminal can get away with it.”

Autotelic novels and autotelic crimes. A brilliant duo!

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Autotelic character is a much more interesting, multi-layered concept that was popularized by Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. (Don't be embarrassed or confused; it's difficult to pronounce if you're not Hungarian.)

Csikszentmihalyi is a psychology professor who is well known in the positive psychology community for his work on happiness and creativity, as well as his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

Cskszentmihályi proposed that people are happiest when they are in a state of flow, or complete immersion in the activity at hand and the situation. He described flow state thus:

"being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost.”

A musician playing a beautiful song, a basketball player who is on a good day and in an exciting match, or a dancer giving a performance. Those are examples of flow states. The state in which a human feels delighted, content, complete, and fully concentrated without any external force or motivation, having forgotten everything remaining outside and being completely drawn by the activity itself.

Have you ever felt this way?

I remember some of my cooking moments. After imagining my desired plate, I spent hours animating all my senses. Smells of herbs, onions, or garlic, and a boiling tomato sauce. Meat has gotten a gold color after staying for hours in a slowly heated iron pan. And at the end, as the crown of the queen, a sweet and thick white sauce on a cinnamon-smelling apple pie. If I were Csikszentmihályi, I would give the time spent in the kitchen while preparing such a meal as an example of a perfect flow state.

Csíkszentmihályi and his colleague identify the following six factors as encompassing an experience of flow:

• Intense and focused concentration on the present moment

• Merging of action and awareness

• A loss of reflective self-consciousness

• A sense of personal control or agency over the situation or activity

• A distortion of temporal experience, as one's subjective experience of time is altered

• Experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding, also referred to as autotelic experience

Csikszentmihályi, as you can see, included autotelic experience as one of the component states of achieving flow. Autotelic people are those who are internally driven and, as a result, have a sense of purpose and curiosity.

Given that, I suppose the great artists are perfect examples for autotelic people; otherwise, creating a masterpiece or even a unique art product wouldn’t be possible. And, in my opinion, those people are among the luckiest in the world.

Notes & Reads:

Whiplash is a film about a promising young drummer's extraordinary experience with his conservatory instructor, who is famous for his legendary yet aggressive style, but it's also a visual story about a musician's passionate relationship with music. Throughout the movie, you witness many scenes that will visually demonstrate how is the flow state to you.

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience is the book by Csikszentmihályi, which we went over throughout the whole post. I will definitely read it very soon and remove it from my waiting list, which is already quite crowded.

I hope that many of you will have autotelic experiences and will share them in the comments so that we can all be inspired.

Have a wonderful week and weekend.

Till next week,

— Gulsun

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