… Do It For The Culture

Most of art, most of philosophy, and most of culture are attempts to answer the question “What is the most effective strategy for living a life of meaning and fulfillment that contributes to the flourishing of your community?” Culture is an answer that we all aspire to. It’s a story that we all agree to imitate. We have all been raised by our respective families and by our shared culture. What has the culture taught you?

It is an inescapable fact of human nature that you will sacrifice everything for your highest priority. What priorities has the culture given you? What strategy has the culture given you? What story have you been imitating your whole life? How much meaning and fulfillment has that produced in your life? How much flourishing has it produced in your community?

If the culture has produced an epidemic of despair, as in…

• 49,300 suicides in America in 2023

• 105,000 overdoses in America in 2023

• an American birth rate of 1.64 relative to the replacement rate of 2.1

• 38 million Americans medicated for depression in 2023

• 42 million Americans affected by anxiety disorders in 2023

then is it possible that the culture is in need of an update? If a baseball stadium full of people is killing themselves every year, and a football stadium full of people is overdosing every year, then it’s safe to say that we are not flourishing.

Here’s the thing: there is an optimal state of consciousness that produces peak performance and wellbeing. It’s called “the flow state,” or “ecstasis,” or “the zone.” Has the culture taught you to prioritize this state of mind? Has the culture taught you how to create the conditions that produce the state of mind that produces flourishing? Would you like to know how to access this state of mind in your daily life? Would you like to know how to live a life of meaning and fulfillment that contributes to the flourishing of your community? Isn’t it safe to deduce that everyone wants the answers to these questions? If you met a person who said they didn’t want the answers to these questions, would you want to have anything to do with that mopey bastard?

Here’s something else: the information is available. Much of the work has already been done by people like Jung, Campbell, and Peterson, and people like Csikszentmihalyi, Kotler, and Wheal. There is more work to do, and that is the update to the culture. It is a tragedy and a travesty that no one has been asking the questions out loud. “What is the most effective strategy for living a life of meaning and fulfillment that contributes to the flourishing of your community?” “Since the flow state delivers peak performance and wellbeing, why would anyone devote any time or attention to anything else?” Well, that is the adjustment we can make to advance the culture. We can start asking these questions out loud. We can build community, culture, and belonging around finding the answers.

If we look at the work that Jung, Campbell, and Peterson have done analyzing the hero myths and legends, we gain a fundamental understanding of human nature. We learn that everyone is born with talent and the desire to unleash it. We learn that most people get deterred by uncertainty and self-doubt. We learn that uncertainty and self-doubt can be confronted and overcome by devoting your time and attention to your authentic, nonnegotiable priorities. When uncertainty and self-doubt have been overcome, then one can master their craft in a way that allows their talent to flow through their decisions and actions. We learn that this philosophy produces the conditions for peak performance and wellbeing.

If we look at the work of Csikszentmihalyi, Kotler, and Wheal, we learn that the flow state has triggers like…

• Risk: an emotional risk, a social risk, a physical risk, etc.

• Creativity: making connections between seemingly unrelated ideas

• The Challenge/Skills Balance: the challenge of the task slightly exceeds the skill set

• Novelty: Exposure to new, fresh, and unfamiliar stimuli that the brain cannot easily ignore.

• Complexity: Situations filled with deep, multi-layered information that force intense pattern recognition.

• Unpredictability: Fast-changing or volatile conditions where you cannot guess what will happen next, forcing you to remain highly vigilant.

If we study and understand the work that has been done, and we collaborate on the work that is yet to be done, then we will update and advance the culture. If we can take a culture that prioritizes compliance and produces an epidemic of despair, and we update it with a culture that prioritizes peak performance that can unleash an era of wellbeing, isn’t that worth our time and attention? Isn’t that a quest that is worth the sacrifices that will be necessary to complete it? Can you think of a quest that will produce more meaning, fulfillment, and contribution? Can you think of something you’d rather do?

This isn’t about forcing people to update the culture, because enforced compliance is how we got here. This is an invitation, because, as James P. Carse said, “It is an invariable principle of all play, finite and infinite, that whoever plays, plays freely. Whoever must play, cannot play.”

This is your invitation. Shall we play a game?