practical inquiry regarding meaning » value
The A-phase goal is what positive psychologists call vital engagement: "a relationship to the world that is characterized both by experiences of flow (enjoyed absorption) and by meaning (subjective significance)" (Nakamura, J., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. [2003] Construction of meaning through vital engagement. In Keyes and Haidt, eds. Flourishing).
Some common characteristics of flow include...
a sense that one's skills are adequate to cope with the challenges at hand, in a goal-directed, rule-bound action system that provides clear clues as to how well one is performing. Concentration is so intense that there is no attention left over to think about anything irrelevant, or to worry about problems. Self-consciousness disappears, and the sense of time becomes distorted. An activity that produces such experiences is so gratifying that people are willing to do it for its own sake, with little concern for what they will get out of it, even when it is difficult, or dangerous. —Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990) Flow: The psychology of optimal experience, pg. 71
