An item on Eschaton may have uncovered an even better one: Csikszentmihalyi.
After being struck dumb by such a violent collision of consonants, I googled the name and was surprised to find 23,000 results and a relatively well-known owner, a professor named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who wrote Flow, a book about "the psychology of optimal experience."
He's one of those carpe diem types who thinks people should strive to be unique, according to a page of his quotes:
Problems are solved only when we devote a great deal of attention to them and in a creative way...to have a good life, it is not enough to remove what is wrong with it. We also need a positive goal, otherwise why keep going? Creativity is one answer to that question: It provides one of the most exciting models for living.
Another writer, in spite of a belief that the last name has magical powers, is skeptical of Csikszentmihalyi's ability to deliver "optimal experience:"
The flow experience is special because nowhere does so much bad psychology come together to make a rather simple observation so impossibly complex and gaseously profound. Like a buffet meal, the flow experience has something for anyones psychic palate, and includes consciousness raising and ordering, holistic experiences, psychic energy, and self-growth, not to mention that it feels good too! Indeed, it offers every kind of psychic goodness except afterlife experiences and a good roll in the hay.
Csikszentmihalyi is pronounced "chick-sent-mih-high," according to a review on Amazon. I now have the optimal name for my next dog.
Actually, its Hungarian. I think.
aj marr
(aka dr mezmer)
Excellent laugher for late Friday night. I wonder what the ethnicity of that name is.
Marvellous piece! Sunday morning cheering for me ;-)
I can't stop googling the name. The full pronunciation of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is "ME-high CHICK-sent-me-high-ee," according to this bio. If you say it assertively while holding a stick, it sounds like Harry Potter casting some kind of sinister snake incantation.
Just to let you know, there's another Csikszentmihalyi stirring up shit.
Found on the daily rotten a coupla days ago: Chris Csikszentmihalyi is an MIT prof and one of the people behind the GIT (Government Information Awareness) project http://opengov.media.mit.edu/ a high-time parallel to the TIA (Total Information Awareness scam by the US gov't).
M.Csikszentmihalyi is Hungarian.
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