Chapter 3 Enjoyment and the Quality of Life 享受和生活质量

Pleasure and enjoyment

愉悦和享受

The elements of enjoyment

享受的要素

The autotelic experience

自动体验

说在前面：这一小节内容有点长，有41页，两个小时之内完全看不完，我只截取了一些重点段落。这小节的核心内容是享受的八个元素。

01

The first surprise we encountered in our study was how similarly very different activities were described when they were going especially well.

我们在研究中遇到的第一个意外是，当活动进展得特别顺利时，对这些非常不同的活动的体验是多么相似。

02

The second surprise was that, regardless of culture, stage of modernization, social class, age, or gender, the respondents described enjoyment in very much the same way.

第二个令人惊讶的是，无论文化、现代化阶段、社会阶层、年龄或性别，受访者对享受的描述都大同小异。

03

As our studies have suggested, the phenomenology of enjoyment has eight major components. When people reflect on how it feels when their experience is most positive, they mention at least one, and often all, of the following.

正如我们的研究所表明的，享受现象学有八个主要组成部分。当人们反思他们的经历最积极时的感受时，他们会提到至少一个，通常是以下所有的事情。

First, the experience usually occurs when we confront tasks we have a chance of completing.

首先，这种经历通常发生在我们面对任务时，知道我们有机会去完成它。

Second, we must be able to concentrate on what we are doing.

第二，我们必须能够集中精力做我们正在做的事情。

Third and fourth, the concentration is usually possible because the task undertaken has clear goals and provides immediate feedback.

第三和第四，集中注意力通常是可能的，因为所承担的任务有明确的目标，并能提供即时反馈。

Fifth, one acts with a deep but effortless involvement that removes from awareness the worries and frustrations of everyday life.

第五，当一个人的行为有着深度参与感但又感觉不到费力，这从意识中消除了日常生活中的烦恼和挫折。

Sixth, enjoyable experiences allow people to exercise a sense of control over their actions.

第六，愉快的经历让人们对自己的行为有一种控制感。

Seventh, concern for the self disappears, yet paradoxically the sense of self emerges stronger after the flow experience is over.

第七，对自我的关注消失了，但自相矛盾的是，自我意识在心流体验结束后变得更强。

Finally, the sense of the duration of time is altered; hours pass by in minutes, and minutes can stretch out to seem like hours.

最后，时间的持续意义被改变了；小时以分钟为单位流逝，分钟可以延伸成小时。

The combination of all these elements causes a sense of deep enjoyment that is so rewarding people feel that expending a great deal of energy is worthwhile simply to be able to feel it.

所有这些因素的结合都会让人产生一种深深的享受感，这种享受是如此值得人们去感受，以至于花费大量的精力仅仅是为了能够感受到它是值得的。

A Challenging Activity That Requires Skills

需要技能并具有挑战性的活动

It is important to clarify at the outset that an “activity” need not be active in the physical sense, and the “skill” necessary to engage in it need not be a physical skill. For instance, one of the most frequently mentioned enjoyable activities the world over is reading.

必须在一开始就澄清，一项“活动”不必在物理意义上是活动的，从事这项活动所必需的“技能”也不必是一项物理技能。例如，世界上最常提到的令人愉快的活动之一是阅读。

Another universally enjoyable activity is being with other people.

另一个普遍享受的活动是和别人在一起。

Any activity contains a bundle of opportunities for action, or “challenges,” that require appropriate skills to realize. For those who don’t have the right skills, the activity is not challenging; it is simply meaningless.

任何活动都包含一系列行动的机会，或“挑战”，需要具备适当的技能才能实现。对于那些没有正确技能的人来说，这项活动并不具有挑战性；它只是毫无意义。

One simple way to find challenges is to enter a competitive situation.

找到挑战的一个简单方法是进入一个竞争环境。

Competition is enjoyable only when it is a means to perfect one’s skills; when it becomes an end in itself, it ceases to be fun.

只有当竞争是完善自己技能的一种手段时，竞争才是愉快的；当竞争本身成为目的时，竞争就不再是乐趣了。

The Merging of Action and Awareness

知行合一

When all a person’s relevant skills are needed to cope with the challenges of a situation, that person’s attention is completely absorbed by the activity. There is no excess psychic energy left over to process any information but what the activity offers. All the attention is concentrated on the relevant stimuli.

当一个人需要所有的相关技能来应对一种情况的挑战时，这个人的注意力完全被这种活动所吸引，除了活动提供的信息外，没有多余的精神能量来处理任何信息，所有的注意力都集中在相关的刺激上。

As a result, one of the most universal and distinctive features of optimal experience takes place: people become so involved in what they are doing that the activity becomes spontaneous, almost automatic; they stop being aware of themselves as separate from the actions they are performing.

因此，最佳体验的一个最普遍和最显著的特征发生了：人们变得如此专注于他们正在做的事情，以至于活动变得自发的，几乎是自动的；他们不再意识到自己与他们正在执行的行动是分离的。

Clear Goals and Feedback

清晰的目标和反馈

The reason it is possible to achieve such complete involvement in a flow experience is that goals are usually clear, and feedback immediate.

在心流体验中实现这种完全参与的原因是，目标通常是明确的，并且反馈是即时的。

Of course, if one chooses a trivial goal, success in it does not provide enjoyment. If I set as my goal to remain alive while sitting on the living-room sofa, I also could spend days knowing that I was achieving it, just as the rock climber does. But this realization would not make me particularly happy, whereas the climber’s knowledge brings exhilaration to his dangerous ascent.

当然，如果一个人选择了一个微不足道的目标，成功并不能带来快乐。如果我的目标是坐在客厅的沙发上活着，我也可以像攀岩者一样，花上好几天的时间来知道自己正在实现这一目标。但这实现并不能让我特别高兴，而登山者的经历给他危险的攀登带来了兴奋。

Certain activities require a very long time to accomplish, yet the components of goals and feedback are still extremely important to them.

某些活动需要很长的时间才能完成，但目标和反馈的组成部分对它们仍然非常重要。

The goals of an activity are not always as clear as those of tennis, and the feedback is often more ambiguous than the simple “I am not falling” information processed by the climber.

一项活动的目标并不总是像网球那样明确，而且反馈往往比登山者处理的简单的“我没有摔倒”信息更模糊。

Almost any kind of feedback can be enjoyable, provided it is logically related to a goal in which one has invested psychic energy. If I were to set myself up to balance a walking stick on my nose, then the sight of the stick wobbling upright above my face would provide a brief enjoyable interlude. But each of us is temperamentally sensitive to a certain range of information that

几乎任何一种反馈都是令人愉快的，逻辑上能够成立是只要这种反馈与一个人投入精神能量的目标相关。

Concentration on the Task at Hand

专注当下

One of the most frequently mentioned dimensions of the flow experience is that, while it lasts, one is able to forget all the unpleasant aspects of life. This feature of flow is an important by-product of the fact that enjoyable activities require a complete focusing of attention on the task at hand—thus leaving no room in the mind for irrelevant information.

流动体验中最常被提及的一个维度是，当它持续的时候，人们能够忘记生活中所有不愉快的方面。这种流动的特征是一个重要的副产品，因为愉快的活动需要将注意力完全集中在手头的任务上，这样就不会在头脑中留下不相关信息的空间。

The Paradox of Control

控制的悖论

Enjoyment often occurs in games, sports, and other leisure activities that are distinct from ordinary life, where any number of bad things can happen. 

享受常常发生在比赛、运动和其他与普通生活不同的休闲活动中，在这些活动中可能会发生许多坏事。

Here is how a dancer expresses this dimension of the flow experience: “A strong relaxation and calmness comes over me. I have no worries of failure. What a powerful and warm feeling it is! I want to expand, to hug the world. I feel enormous power to effect something of grace and beauty.” And a chess player: “…I have a general feeling of well-being, and that I am in complete control of my world.

下面是一个舞者如何表达这种心流体验的维度：“一种强烈的放松和平静笼罩着我，我不担心失败，这是多么强烈和温暖的感觉啊！我想去拓宽视角，去拥抱世界。我感到有巨大的力量去创造优雅和美丽的东西。”一位棋手说：“……我有一种普遍的幸福感，我完全掌控着我的世界。

What these respondents are actually describing is the possibility, rather than the actuality, of control.

这些受访者实际上描述的是控制的可能性，而不是现实。

The important thing to realize here is that activities that produce flow experiences, even the seemingly most risky ones, are so constructed as to allow the practitioner to develop sufficient skills to reduce the margin of error to as close to zero as possible.

需要意识到重点是，需要去创造心流体验的活动，即使是看起来最危险的活动，都是为了让行动者发展和提升技能，将错误的边际尽可能减少到接近零。

The Loss of Self-Consciousness

自我的失去

In the words of a famous long-distance ocean cruiser: “So one forgets oneself, one forgets everything, seeing only the play of the boat with the sea, the play of the sea around the boat, leaving aside everything not essential to that game….

用一位著名的远洋巡洋舰的话说：“所以一个人忘记了自己，忘记了一切，只看到了船和海的游戏，船周围的海的游戏，撇开一切对那游戏不重要的东西…。

But in flow there is no room for self-scrutiny. Because enjoyable activities have clear goals, stable rules, and challenges well matched to skills, there is little opportunity for the self to be threatened.

但在流动中没有自我审查的余地。因为愉快的活动有明确的目标、稳定的规则和与技能很好匹配的挑战，所以很少有机会让自己受到威胁。

The absence of the self from consciousness does not mean that a person in flow has given up the control of his psychic energy, or that she is unaware of what happens in her body or in her mind. In fact the opposite is usually true.

没有意识的自我并不意味着一个流动中的人已经放弃了对他的精神能量的控制，或者她不知道在她的身体或在她的头脑中发生了什么。事实上恰恰相反。

So loss of self-consciousness does not involve a loss of self, and certainly not a loss of consciousness, but rather, only a loss of consciousness of the self.

因此，失去自我意识并不意味着失去自我，当然也不是失去意识，而只是失去自我意识。

But afterward, when the activity is over and self-consciousness has a chance to resume, the self that the person reflects upon is not the same self that existed before the flow experience: it is now enriched by new skills and fresh achievements.

但之后，当活动结束，自我意识有机会恢复时，人们所反思的自我就不再是流动体验之前的自我了：现在它被新的技能和新的成就所丰富。

The Transformation of Time

时间转化

It is not clear whether this dimension of flow is just an epiphenomenon—a by-product of the intense concentration required for the activity at hand—or whether it is something that contributes in its own right to the positive quality of the experience. Although it seems likely that losing track of the clock is not one of the major elements of enjoyment, freedom from the tyranny of time does add to the exhilaration we feel during a state of complete involvement.

目前尚不清楚，心流体验中的这一维度是否只是一种附属品，即当下活动所需的高度集中的副产品，或者它本身是否有助于体验的积极质量。虽然忘了时间流逝似乎不是享受的主要因素之一，但摆脱时间的暴政确实增加了我们在完全参与状态下的兴奋感。