In this lesson we will shortly touch the how and why evolution brought us the experience of flow in the first place.
As we have learned in the previous lesson, the experience of flow is universal and it has been reported to occur throughout history, across different classes, genders, ages, cultures and it can be experienced in many types of activities. Optimal experiences are described in the same way by men and women, by young people and old, regardless of cultural differences.
Research agrees that flow indeed plays a key role in the survival of the species, as one of the main mechanisms of our evolution. By developing a neurophysiological connection between pleasure and effort, our ancestors have learned to seek out ever increasing challenges, a continuous expanding of the boundaries of engagement with the world.
So flow appears to be a mechanism that has been selected through evolution because humans who learned to enjoy extending their skill through effortful action, would survive and leave offspring in relatively higher numbers than those whose brain only rewarded them when they took care of pleasant homeostatic needs.
Recent studies suggest that we feel pleasure when dopamine is sent to parts of the brain that are involved in passive, homeostatic activity; while flow results when dopamine arrives to parts of the brain involved in effortful, conscious striving.
Evolution has fundamentally programmed us to seek flow, in a sense, it is one of the prime directives of our consciousness. We must value it as such, if we want to break free from the clutches of hollow reward mechanisms.
