The following is a brief commentary on Creative Development in every day life.
A Still Mind. When doing nothing gets results!
To, grow, learn, achieve or succeed in life it is generally accepted that one needs to be enthusiastically doing things to accomplish satisfactory results. Saints and Philosophical scholars have, over several thousand years advocated for the powerful beneficial effects of stilling the mind. Even if we choose to ignore all of them and take our lead from modern science, what you will discover is that developing the skill / habit of quietening the mind can have a major positive effect on mental processing. The scientific explanation for this is mind boggling complex, so I won’t bother you with it (couldn't if I tried). A possible simple explanation is that experiencing quiet uninterrupted stillness of mind is a pleasant antidote to the hustle and bustle of life. Through repetitive practice this peaceful, pleasant state develops into a welcomed habit. This new habit causes the brain to avoid or dismiss thoughts that are contrary to the new statuesque of a brain that has become accustomed to the nicer option of peace of mind. Stilling the mind is like debugging your PC; it will operate smoother, faster and be more reliable allowing creative juices to more freely flow.
Like Minded Quality of ‘like’ = Quality of flow.
The context here is not like-minded people but the full scale from like to absolutely detest regarding all things and matters that constitute an individual’s life. From food, clothes, choice of car to the people we hang out with feature somewhere along the scale. The majority of one’s likes and dislikes are of minor consequence; however there are some aspects of life that are either positively or adversely impacted by how one feels about them, by where they rate on the like/detest scale. Creative flow occurs when ones faculties are harmoniously occupied in an enjoyable satisfying and rewarding task, if you thoroughly enjoy your career and doing your job, progress and continuous success is the most lightly outcome. The feeling derived is conducive to higher creative mental functioning. Rating low on the like scale diminishes mental flow and impedes progress, one real life example of this is a person in middle management, competent at their job, but ten years later they are still middle management. The person who loves doing a similar job is the CEO ten years later or they quit and now run their own company. Keeping this brief I will jump to a very different example. A student sitting leaving cert, doing let’s say a geography exam, really dislike the subject, studied and prepared well but will likely score low due to the brains instinctual avoidance of any specific memory that produces a negative emotional feeling. This theory isn't carved in stone, a student may seriously dislike an exam subject but it will take quite a lot of hard work and endless hours of study to hit an ‘A’. The easy solution is to nurture a more positive relation to the subject or in the case of one career, being passionate and interested in what you do really matters if progression is what is desired. The following tip ties into and expands on the relevance of like/detest.
State of Mind Emotional status = Creative status.
Every experience and encounter in life contains an emotional signature which acts like an encoding system. Most of us are unconsciously unaware that the feelings of happy, sad, love or hate are facilitated by matching chemicals produced in the brain. This is why an inspiring idea is usually accompanied by complementary feelings; the same thinking that created the idea triggered the matching chemicals which caused the feel good. A person can be alone, having anger generating thoughts causing their pulse and heart rate to increase. Memory and emotions are locked together in a naturally occurring coding system.What does this all mean? Memory is a vast database of creative resource. Life gives most of us a broad spectrum of experience, the good the bad and the ugly, what we like, dislike, our passions and distains, the various levels of privilege, advantage or disadvantage. Whatever one’s lot is, nature treats all as a useful resource. The vast majority of people have a self established emotional range. Our emotional range determines our response to circumstances or events. A person’s emotional range could swing from calm passive to irritated and annoyed; another’s established range could be from calm assertive to raging anger as a response to circumstances.
So how does this relate to ‘emotional status = creative status’? Ones total database of memory and experience is available as a resource for creative exploits. If you are unaware of the mechanics of managing productive creative thinking then your emotions will manage it for you. What you get will be haphazard, determined by an emotional state that will choose memory to match the feeling, the brain will offer up information that may or may not be complementary to your creative task. How do you take the driving seat of your mind and get your brain to offer up the useful stuff most of the time. It’s not too complicated. When you nurture your emotional well-being, quality and quantity of consistent productive creative thinking is a common known side effect.
( to be continued )