The Limits of Self-Consciousness

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Sociologist emile durkheim gave the name "anomy" to a condition in society where norms of behavior had become muddled. When it's no longer clear what's permitted and what's not, behavior becomes erratic,. And when you're acting within fairly narrow constraints, that still allow you the dom to excel within them, that's when you're gong to lose yourself.

David and Tamler lose themselves in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s (pr. ‘chick sent me high’) classic paper on the concept of flow. We talk about the features of flow activities – loss of ego, the merging of your awareness with the activity, and autotelic (not what you think) enjoyment. What makes flow activities so rewarding? Do you need to develop skills over many years to experience them? Do easy and natural social interactions count as flow?

Plus as men of pure virtue, we call an audible and choose not to make fun of a recent paper (with a student as lead author). Instead we pilot a not fully formed idea: “Substack Starters." Now that the economy is tanking, do we have any heterodox beliefs that might lead to profitable Substacks?