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Before adopting the word “flow” to describe the phenomenon of self-directed creativity, Dr. Csikszentmihalyi called it “autotelic experience,” to denote something done not for an outside reward but for its own intrinsic worth.

The bonsai’s uselessly autotelic function can seem uncomfortably close to that of the novel.

“I am sure that if we had continued to use the precise but cumbersome ‘autotelic experience,’ ” he said in 2000, “few people outside the academic community would have paid attention.”