Sublime

Mihaly made the case for “positive psychology”: that we should primarily focus on the things that make life worth living, and find ways to boost them.

I’d like to sketch out this theory of life tasks, which I’ve adapted from the developmental psychologists, especially from scholars like Erik Erikson, the author of “Life Cycle Completed,” and Robert Kegan, author of “The Evolving Self.”

Frost understood that the poet’s chief job is to create the right conditions for the blossoming of The Gift. He understood that he needed a chrysalis—a quiet, contemplative life—with plenty of leisure for writing, reading, thinking, contemplating.

In that inquiry, we dig deeply into the case studies of neurodiverse writer Naoki Higashida, the civil rights movement’s Freedom Schools, and interdisciplinary scholar par excellence Leonardo da Vinci.

For centuries, the myth of the lone genius has towered over us like a colossus. The idea that new, beautiful, world-changing things come from within great minds is now so common that we don’t even consider it an idea. These bronze statues have come to seem like old-growth trees—monuments to modern thinking that we mistake for part of the natural

The case may be particular, but the underlying principle is universal. We each face calls, triggered by chance encounters with people, objects or ideas, to change our lives. Something within us knows far better than our day-to-day consciousness permits us to realize the direction we need to go in in order to become whom we could really be.

As a graduate student just beginning to probe the psychology of success, I was interviewing leaders in business, art, athletics, journalism, academia, medicine, and law: Who are the people at the very top of your field? What are they like? What do you think makes them special?

Cultivating Social Capital