226 ■ flowspontaneity of children. If the arena for action is challenging enough,
a person may experience flow continuously in his or her calling, thus
leaving as little room as possible for noticing the entropy of normal life.
In this way harmony is restored to consciousness indirectly—not by
facing up to contradictions and trying to resolve conflicting goals and
desires, but by pursuing chosen goals with such intensity that all poten
tial competition is preempted.
Action helps create inner order, but it has its drawbacks. A person
strongly dedicated to achieving pragmatic ends might eliminate internal
conflict, but often at the price of excessively restricting options. The
young engineer who aims to become plant manager at age forty-five and
bends all his energies to that end may sail through several years success
fully and without hesitation. Sooner or later, however, postponed alter
natives may reappear again as intolerable doubts and regrets. Was it
worth sacrificing my health for the promotion? What happened to those
lovely children who have suddenly turned into sullen adolescents? Now
that I have achieved power and financial security, what do I do with it?
In other words, the goals that have sustained action over a period turn
out not to have enough power to give meaning to the entirety of life.
This is where the presumed advantage of a contemplative life
comes in. Detached reflection upon experience, a realistic weighing of
options and their consequences, have long been held to be the best
approach to a good life. Whether it is played out on the psychoanalyst’s
couch, where repressed desires are laboriously reintegrated with the rest
of consciousness, or whether it is performed as methodically as the
Jesuits’ test of conscience, which involves reviewing one’s actions one
or more times each day to check whether what one has been doing in
the past few hours has been consistent with long-term goals, self-knowl
edge can be pursued in innumerable ways, each leading potentially to
greater inner harmony.
Activity and reflection should ideally complement and support
each other. Action by itself is blind, reflection impotent. Before invest
ing great amounts of energy in a goal, it pays to raise the fundamental
questions: Is this something I really want to do? Is it something I enjoy
doing? Am I likely to enjoy it in the foreseeable future? Is the price that
I—and others—will have to pay worth it? Will I be able to live with
myself if I accomplish it?
These seemingly easy questions are almost impossible to answer
for someone who has lost touch with his own experience. If a man has
not bothered to find out what he wants, if his attention is so wrapped
up in external goals that he fails to notice his own feelings, then he