By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 14/04/2026How could we make so much progress and so little progress in being happy? In his work Csikszentmihalyi found people reported happiness while doing difficult things well - when your "body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile." 26/ 192
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 14/04/2026As Derek Thompson says, the word "flow" implies an effortlessness, but really, it's the *effort* - just enough, not too much - that defines flow-states. We aren't happiest in a frictionless world, but rather, in a world of "achievable challenges": www.derekthompson.org/p/how-zombie... 27/derekthompson.orgHow ‘Zombie Flow’ Took Over CultureOr: If you're so smart, why aren't you happier? 1122
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 14/04/2026Thompson relates this to "the law of familiar surprises," an idea he developed in his book *Hit Makers*, which investigated why some media, ideas and people found fame, while others languished. A "familiar surprise" is something that's "familiar but not too familiar." 28/ 150