Overcoming Fear
In a given week how many times do you act out of fear or use fear to get things moving along around home or the office? If its more than say... zero, you could stand to do some improvement in this area. If that last statement made you twinge a little, perhaps you don't even realize more fully the effect fear has. After all, you learned through fear and ended up fine. Maybe you haven't experienced any alternatives, or experienced them deeply enough to want to move beyond your mindset. I've been there, and its been my experience that few things in life have the capacity to hold one back more than fear. Especially in the case of developing an inner peace and happiness, which I have found to be crucial towards the utilization of both inner and outer resources.
Since it is hard to overcome something if you haven't defined it, lets start at that point. I define fear as a feeling of stress resulting from viewing an entity as separate from ourselves, and therefore outside of our immediate control. It can lead to one taking often illogical precautionary action, such as driving to a far away destination as opposed to flying. When statistically one is much more likely to die in a car related accident. We might view our happiness as dependent on financial stability rather than our immediate control and continue to work at a high paying yet unsatisfactory job for fear of loosing our happiness.
In my own case I have the gift/curse of experiencing very intense emotions, and before I developed a critical amount of balance and understanding my emotions would often control me. Fear would often lead me developing tunnel vision and missing the big picture almost entirely. One such scenario involved me pulling artwork out of a private show and placing it in a school sponsored show because I thought I had to, that I was obligated to. This in turn lead to the collapse of the first show and the subsequent reactions of the fellow artists. I became somewhat depressed and even more introspective for about a month before finally coming to terms with my own social ineptitude. I reasoned that since I am unable to read the unwritten manual of society, I might as well throw it out the window and do things that make sense from a logical perspective that I can continually refine and expand. This as opposed to one that seems arbitrary, exclusive, based on feeling, and subversive of my will. Took me long enough, but I finally got there.
The Cost
When I think of the cost of fear, I sometimes think of peace of cheese on a mouse trap. It might look good before hand or even in the short term, but its going to catch you before you know it. In some cases you might even have to gnaw off a proverbial foot to get out.
If you give in to fear for a need of security enough times, you will eventually build a cage for yourself. Taken the other way, if you lash out in anger because of fear, you end up causing fear in others. You may even notice this pattern and begin to refine your approach as a way to get what you want. The cost of this is that you will be possessed by your accomplishments and will often be afraid of losing them or feel a need to defend them.
The first two are immediate ways that fear can manifest itself. Others might include pride, jealousy, hatred, depression and generally any of the "lower emotions", which in turn wind up broadcasting fear to those around us. If people give think with fear rather than moving beyond it, they end up creating defensive mechanisms which render them much more difficult to deal with and generally results in a lot of friction. To overcome this friction we often use money as a lubricant in our social machine, and therefore develop a dependence on it.
Giving in to fear also enables us to be used much easier. Why? You can always count on a fearful person to respond out of fear, as such someone can learn to harness this phenomenon creatively to shape society. In one of my social projects I even illustrated this principle to help people become more aware of fear and its overall detrimental effects. Other more cinematic examples might include "Wag the Dog" and "The Dark Knight". If an army or nation is led through fear, all one has to do is strike more fear into it than the rulers and it becomes yours. If only temporarily.
The Benefits of Mastery
Probably the main benefit of overcoming fear would be the positive snowball effect that it has on the course of your life. In other words its very difficult to pursue, or even to recognize opportunities if we are afraid of the associated responsibilities and consequences. If we were able to pursue the opportunities it would open up a whole new set of avenues to explore, which in turn leads to set after set of new opportunities.
Some of those opportunities might even be getting to meet new people. If you have taken a conscious effort to overcome your fear, it becomes more natural to associate with and attract more people who are on similar wavelengths. During my last year of college when I became much more positive and began to get myself out more, I began to notice and refine that pattern. Due to my obsessive work habits I didn't regularly hang out with a group of people and instead made friends on the go, in some cases people would actually seek me out to talk to me. The cool people will be drawn to you and the negative people will talk about you, after enough conversations down the line another positive person will hear about you and will want to learn more.
You may even notice an increase in your productivity, this may be due in part to seeing new options as a result of a new viewpoint. For example, if you have ridden yourself of fear and pride you may begin to see arguments and bickering as pointless and wastes of time. Since you have no stake in being right, it seems much more natural to pass up personal vendettas in favor of seeking the truth. You also don't carry around that feeling of dread or worry that can slow down your thought and action process. It becomes much easier to focus on your goals if you can transform your mosquitos into gnats.
After learning to control fear, you can even learn to control the higher emotions like happiness so as to generate a sense of contentment and balance that you can always take with you. Life is what you perceive it.
Steps to Mastery
The steps to learning to master one's fear are actually fairly simple. In many cases, it is just a process of repeating them many times.
1. Reflect
In any situation, there are more alternatives toward escaping fear rather than running from it or acting upon it. These involve reflection which can lead one to not only develop a deeper understanding of the subject but also its relationship to ourselves.
Since fear is the result of viewing something to be separate than you, you can eliminate it by making the source a part of you. Either by fitting it and its system inside your head or by embracing it, then moving on with a positive course of action from there.
2. Don't Feed Your Fears
If you have followed the above step, you should have a viable alternative toward using your brain to process fear. My logic on it goes a little something like this. You have a finite amount of processing power, any processing power used for fear ties up cognitive thought that could be used for generating solutions. The more that one thinks with fear based processes, the more that they become used, strengthened, and more difficult to move beyond them. Similarly if one does not think with fear based processes and pathways, they become less used and will begin to atrophy.
Another reason to not feed the fear is to recognize its effect on others. When one gives in, one broadcasts fear to others which in turn can cause ripples in society or further entrench an already unfavorable situation. Its a memetic disease of the mind, and a very persistent one at that. Much like Guinea Worm Disease a way to halt its spreading is to often go against our natural urges in favor of more informed action.
3. Stay Proactive
Fear generally arrises as a default in humans, its our body's way of ensuring its own survival. Without continued conscious effort and will, one enables our default processes to make our decisions for us. It might save the body or provide security, but it can cost us our freedom.
A proactive past, even if littered in failure often will provide the fuel and momentum necessary to continue to live a proactive and positive life. This as opposed to a life spent obeying our lower emotions, which many tend to view as a weight tied around their ankle. Or even an albatross around their neck.
4. Practice Self Discipline.
Self discipline itself does nothing, however if combined with principles such as the top three it helps the end result to be much more spectacular. It is the keystone in the arch that channels the forces and provides stability. It enables one to turn a series small changes over a long period of time into a big difference.
It can manifest itself in such ways as resisting the urge to fire back an insult after being insulted, or even taking some time every day to reflect on life and sort things out.
Taking the step
Are you afraid of losing fear? Too prideful to let go of pride? Are you afraid of what it might feel like to spread your wings and fly? Are you afraid of hitting the concrete if you fail?
When going after goals, it is a likelihood that you will fail a few times or run into some roadblocks. In a very practical sense, a mastery of our fear gives us the endurance and clarity to be able to work out the kinks in our approach.
Fear can also be viewed as a security blanket that doesn't really protect one from the cold. When you no longer need it you will be able to let it go.
Creative Motivation
"When you create you get a little endorphin rush. Why do you think Einstein looked like that?"
-Robin Williams
Throughout history, the figures that have stood out that have exhibited the quality of creativity. This isn''t necessarily because they knew the most, instead its because their intense creativity drove them to produce or organize things in ways that hadn''t been done up until that point.
Granted, some have inherited more basic material for developing this quality, but how does one go about refining it and putting to use what we have on hand?
Mindsets
Few things can kill motivation for a project easier than viewing as something one has to do. Part of the reason I was so unmotivated in school is because the work that was presented to me required more of what seemed like going through the motions rather than creative thinking. Because that was the only reality that I knew I even began to think that it was expected of me to subvert my creativity and will to be able to fit in society. Since then I developed a passion for living proactively and accomplished more in a year and spread more positivity than I had up until that point. Cultivate passion, don''t turn it into work. If there isn''t a passion in your occupation, you will tend to go along with the motions and may even develop a hobby or passion just to get you through the day. If you aren''t too careful, you could end up in a cycle that keeps you in a job you hate just to support a passion that won''t take you anywhere. At the very least, following your passion could mean the difference between working for somebody and working with them.
Develop a personal relationship with failure, get comfortable with it. Instead of being scared of failure, become eager for it. View it as perhaps the best teacher. Failure can only show us the flaws in our approach if we let it teach us. If you aren''t failing at something, try increasing your ambitions just a tad.
Keep at it. If you perform an activity everyday over a long period of time you will develop not only mastery, but also a sizable catalog of previous works which one can rely on. For me it was a bit difficult to get into the habit of working out six days a week, but eventually whenever my body adapted and I experienced the benefits first hand it would likely be more difficult to get me to quit. It certainly can get dull at times, and most especially in the beginning when developing the habit. Eventually though, the skills and understanding that you have developed will enable you to create more elaborate or even elegantly simplistic works with greater amounts of ease. In the case of those with prodigious talent, its not so much about mastering the subject as it is about finding a set of challenges that grows at the rate your understanding does. This can mean the difference between opening up a new understanding of several interrelated subjects or mastering a succession of many different hobbies.
Imagine the big picture. Aside from wanting to see the work finished, one should imagine its uses afterward. This way one will be able to ease transitions and bypass creative slumps by already having thought of the next several steps in the plan. Picture one''s work as a never ending journey with many many steps. And perhaps the simplest and most central mindset, always ask why.
Strategies
Switch modes, but still create. If you find yourself at a writers block practice on fleshing out some small concepts for an hour. If you are having difficulty getting a particular painting moving along, flip it upside down and start up again. If you need to work out the logic in a computer program, sketch out a model of the the pathways it would take. The point here is to keep moving. If all you end up doing is sitting in one place without placing any ideas into a framework, you are training your self to do that. Practice is a double edged sword.
Work in blocks. Generally after setting down I will turn my timer on for an hour and see just how much I can flesh out an idea. If I do not develop any ideas beyond outlines and sketches within a certain time period, I will switch to something else. This way I allow my brain to develop at its own pace. I reason that if I am unable to follow through with something at this point in time, I am still assimilating the foundations of that information. So I allow my mind to expand at its own pace rather than trying to force it to go beyond its capacities. The ground can only absorb a finite amount of rainwater at a time, anything else becomes runoff and interferes with efficiency. If however I am able to develop a solid train of thought I will often pursue it for several hours if not more until the project becomes completed or I run out of energy.
Give creativity an opportunity to grow. If you can''t be creative without some freedom and space, by all means give your creativity room to flourish. This might mean taking a different path from the norm. Part of the reason Einstein was Einstein is because he didn''t fit into mainstream academia and instead pursued an understanding of his own field. At the very least one could give one''s creativity more room to grow by turning off the TV.
Take creative field trips. Everybody needs to get out sometime, even the most obsessive amongst us. But when you do, do so with a purpose. After I finish writing for the day, I will take a walk and analyze nature, society, housing, ecology, and pretty much anything else that pops into my head on that trip. Over time I begin to develop an understanding of larger underlying or overlying patterns that then become inspiration for new avenues of exploration, while the material collected becomes a reservoir of material for the expression of that pattern. Creative fuel.
Why create?
In the act of creation, one places a snapshot of their mind and self down into a framework. Because of this it enables one to reflect on themselves. It can show you things about yourself whether you are aware of them or not. It could say I''m bad at math or I have a bit of an ego problem, so I have to work on these things. Even if you don''t want to create, or you don''t want to look at your creation it can reveal things about yourself. If one creates enough, one can even develop a solid dialogue with their inner self so as to be able to better understand one''s own happiness and to live more in tune with one''s values.
Strangely enough, for me its essentially my social sonar. I can''t rely on facial expressions, tones of voice, or pretty much any of the unwritten rules of society because I can''t properly sense them. Instead I keep a model of the previous reactions to myself and work then will predict reactions in the future based of that information. Applied creativity enables me to explore both the inner and outer worlds to such an extent that I see and feel no barriers between them. It gives me the freedom and strength to be myself.
In the more physical realm, an increased reliance on your own creativity enables you to have more of a hand in the creation of your life. This as opposed to developing what I like to call a creative deficit and generally letting outside forces make decisions for you. The more that one uses their own creativity, the more one becomes aware of their own capacities, and the less one will begin to rely on arbitrary systems and institutions designed to provide for us or to make our lives more interesting. This could mean having the capacity to develop a skill to gain more independence on Friday night instead of drinking with the bosses to get a raise. It could be the difference between gnawing on the cage or spinning in the wheel.
Advanced Self Awareness
What is advanced self awareness? It is the understanding that your self extends beyond the reaches of your body as well as how it does so. It enables us to situate our lives and our actions to respond within a much larger context than what is immediately in front of us. While it may not be overly valued in society, I believe in the present and coming years it will prove to be very crucial to our advancement.
The Art and Science of Love
The way that I see it, humans are at a very special point in our development. We are conscious (when we want to be) and most of us can't see how we are all connected, how we are all part of the same identity. And those of us who can see it, frequently aren't in positions of power. So most of us end up doing our own thing and trying to run our own show. An example might be operating a successful candy business. Although it is economically viable and widely accepted, it still produces a product that is essentially bad for people and addicting. This is compounded in that those working at the business might even feel justified in doing so because of the securities and benefits, and even further compounded through subsequent interactions. For the most part, actions are generally viewed to be isolated microcosms with little negative effect on the greater world because our limited sense of self is fulfilled. Almost humorously, this attitude sits in the face of a much larger world than our minds can handle.
To get where we are atoms organized into molecules, which organized into molecular machines, which organized into cells, which organized into organs and systems, which organized into biological beings. So why stop there, why can't our minds organize into something even larger? While there isn't yet a unified global framework of exchange, there is the idea of one. The pattern is there, and the logic is based off of geometry and tension much like the aforementioned complex systems.
Ponder this, humans have minds that we use to interact with our world over a period of time, and time is the 4th dimension. So what if you could plot those points of interaction on a 4 dimensional graph? What if you could then make a structure or shape from those points and extrapolate an observable pattern unique to conscious beings which would explain how we interact and fit together? How much then would society function if a refined model of advanced self presence was understood and applied?
How does a person experience this? Tell me, what happens when you have opened yourself up to the point where you completely love something or someone? You realize that it is a part of you, that literally they are you. Tensions are relieved because you can express yourself fully through this medium. Your geometries become so intertwined and connected that you essentially share an identity.
If the immediately above paragraph doesn't make any sense to you, it is likely because you haven't yet accepted yourself. You might try starting there first.
Enter the Frameworkers
Throughout history frameworkers like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and others have been providing a framework of exchange wherein they can change society for the better. This is not only because they saw the connections, but also because they lived congruently with their observations and constantly refined their approach. They showed us how we are all connected with their lives.
Fairly recently in the grand scope of things, mathematicians have joined the fray. Such as John Forbes Nash who described a situation amongst two or more competing groups wherein an equilibrium can be reached with all parties benefiting the maximum possible amount.
In the end, it wasn't about them. Its about everyone. Ultimately they couldn't do any good unless their message was received, applied, and refined by others. Their greatness came from their ability to show people the greatness that is within us all. If they were leaders, they were leaders of a chorus. They taught us how to sing and to not be ashamed of the sound of our own voice.
Why is this necessary
"I have my friends, my family, etc. and I am happy. I don't need to let anyone else in, I'm happy and secure. Why risk myself for someone I don't even know?"
-Jane Dough
Why stop there? Why not cut off everyone around you, then only use the parts of your brain and body that are necessary to keep yourself alive? This way you could completely eliminate your risk of seeing something that would cause you discomfort as well as the chance of hearing something negative from a loved one, so why risk it?
Try not to take that too seriously. But in all honesty if we aren't constantly striving to connect with each other and our surroundings we enable organizations to arise and flourish that promote division and fear.
This might have been viable from an ecological and sociological standpoint several hundred years ago, but things have changed. In today's context an individual can implement an idea and see a near immediate effect in society and the average person can upload a video and waste 4 minutes of someone from halfway around the world. If we aren't too careful we could just throw things out of balance.
Our best hope may be to develop an advanced and interconnected understanding of our world, but ultimately the currency to use it is love.
In a given week how many times do you act out of fear or use fear to get things moving along around home or the office? If its more than say... zero, you could stand to do some improvement in this area. If that last statement made you twinge a little, perhaps you don't even realize more fully the effect fear has. After all, you learned through fear and ended up fine. Maybe you haven't experienced any alternatives, or experienced them deeply enough to want to move beyond your mindset. I've been there, and its been my experience that few things in life have the capacity to hold one back more than fear. Especially in the case of developing an inner peace and happiness, which I have found to be crucial towards the utilization of both inner and outer resources.
Since it is hard to overcome something if you haven't defined it, lets start at that point. I define fear as a feeling of stress resulting from viewing an entity as separate from ourselves, and therefore outside of our immediate control. It can lead to one taking often illogical precautionary action, such as driving to a far away destination as opposed to flying. When statistically one is much more likely to die in a car related accident. We might view our happiness as dependent on financial stability rather than our immediate control and continue to work at a high paying yet unsatisfactory job for fear of loosing our happiness.
In my own case I have the gift/curse of experiencing very intense emotions, and before I developed a critical amount of balance and understanding my emotions would often control me. Fear would often lead me developing tunnel vision and missing the big picture almost entirely. One such scenario involved me pulling artwork out of a private show and placing it in a school sponsored show because I thought I had to, that I was obligated to. This in turn lead to the collapse of the first show and the subsequent reactions of the fellow artists. I became somewhat depressed and even more introspective for about a month before finally coming to terms with my own social ineptitude. I reasoned that since I am unable to read the unwritten manual of society, I might as well throw it out the window and do things that make sense from a logical perspective that I can continually refine and expand. This as opposed to one that seems arbitrary, exclusive, based on feeling, and subversive of my will. Took me long enough, but I finally got there.
When I think of the cost of fear, I sometimes think of peace of cheese on a mouse trap. It might look good before hand or even in the short term, but its going to catch you before you know it. In some cases you might even have to gnaw off a proverbial foot to get out.
If you give in to fear for a need of security enough times, you will eventually build a cage for yourself. Taken the other way, if you lash out in anger because of fear, you end up causing fear in others. You may even notice this pattern and begin to refine your approach as a way to get what you want. The cost of this is that you will be possessed by your accomplishments and will often be afraid of losing them or feel a need to defend them.
The first two are immediate ways that fear can manifest itself. Others might include pride, jealousy, hatred, depression and generally any of the "lower emotions", which in turn wind up broadcasting fear to those around us. If people give think with fear rather than moving beyond it, they end up creating defensive mechanisms which render them much more difficult to deal with and generally results in a lot of friction. To overcome this friction we often use money as a lubricant in our social machine, and therefore develop a dependence on it.
Giving in to fear also enables us to be used much easier. Why? You can always count on a fearful person to respond out of fear, as such someone can learn to harness this phenomenon creatively to shape society. In one of my social projects I even illustrated this principle to help people become more aware of fear and its overall detrimental effects. Other more cinematic examples might include "Wag the Dog" and "The Dark Knight". If an army or nation is led through fear, all one has to do is strike more fear into it than the rulers and it becomes yours. If only temporarily.
Probably the main benefit of overcoming fear would be the positive snowball effect that it has on the course of your life. In other words its very difficult to pursue, or even to recognize opportunities if we are afraid of the associated responsibilities and consequences. If we were able to pursue the opportunities it would open up a whole new set of avenues to explore, which in turn leads to set after set of new opportunities.
Some of those opportunities might even be getting to meet new people. If you have taken a conscious effort to overcome your fear, it becomes more natural to associate with and attract more people who are on similar wavelengths. During my last year of college when I became much more positive and began to get myself out more, I began to notice and refine that pattern. Due to my obsessive work habits I didn't regularly hang out with a group of people and instead made friends on the go, in some cases people would actually seek me out to talk to me. The cool people will be drawn to you and the negative people will talk about you, after enough conversations down the line another positive person will hear about you and will want to learn more.
You may even notice an increase in your productivity, this may be due in part to seeing new options as a result of a new viewpoint. For example, if you have ridden yourself of fear and pride you may begin to see arguments and bickering as pointless and wastes of time. Since you have no stake in being right, it seems much more natural to pass up personal vendettas in favor of seeking the truth. You also don't carry around that feeling of dread or worry that can slow down your thought and action process. It becomes much easier to focus on your goals if you can transform your mosquitos into gnats.
After learning to control fear, you can even learn to control the higher emotions like happiness so as to generate a sense of contentment and balance that you can always take with you. Life is what you perceive it.
The steps to learning to master one's fear are actually fairly simple. In many cases, it is just a process of repeating them many times.
1. Reflect
In any situation, there are more alternatives toward escaping fear rather than running from it or acting upon it. These involve reflection which can lead one to not only develop a deeper understanding of the subject but also its relationship to ourselves.
Since fear is the result of viewing something to be separate than you, you can eliminate it by making the source a part of you. Either by fitting it and its system inside your head or by embracing it, then moving on with a positive course of action from there.
2. Don't Feed Your Fears
If you have followed the above step, you should have a viable alternative toward using your brain to process fear. My logic on it goes a little something like this. You have a finite amount of processing power, any processing power used for fear ties up cognitive thought that could be used for generating solutions. The more that one thinks with fear based processes, the more that they become used, strengthened, and more difficult to move beyond them. Similarly if one does not think with fear based processes and pathways, they become less used and will begin to atrophy.
Another reason to not feed the fear is to recognize its effect on others. When one gives in, one broadcasts fear to others which in turn can cause ripples in society or further entrench an already unfavorable situation. Its a memetic disease of the mind, and a very persistent one at that. Much like Guinea Worm Disease a way to halt its spreading is to often go against our natural urges in favor of more informed action.
3. Stay Proactive
Fear generally arrises as a default in humans, its our body's way of ensuring its own survival. Without continued conscious effort and will, one enables our default processes to make our decisions for us. It might save the body or provide security, but it can cost us our freedom.
A proactive past, even if littered in failure often will provide the fuel and momentum necessary to continue to live a proactive and positive life. This as opposed to a life spent obeying our lower emotions, which many tend to view as a weight tied around their ankle. Or even an albatross around their neck.
4. Practice Self Discipline.
Self discipline itself does nothing, however if combined with principles such as the top three it helps the end result to be much more spectacular. It is the keystone in the arch that channels the forces and provides stability. It enables one to turn a series small changes over a long period of time into a big difference.
It can manifest itself in such ways as resisting the urge to fire back an insult after being insulted, or even taking some time every day to reflect on life and sort things out.
Are you afraid of losing fear? Too prideful to let go of pride? Are you afraid of what it might feel like to spread your wings and fly? Are you afraid of hitting the concrete if you fail?
When going after goals, it is a likelihood that you will fail a few times or run into some roadblocks. In a very practical sense, a mastery of our fear gives us the endurance and clarity to be able to work out the kinks in our approach.
Fear can also be viewed as a security blanket that doesn't really protect one from the cold. When you no longer need it you will be able to let it go.
Creative Motivation
"When you create you get a little endorphin rush. Why do you think Einstein looked like that?"
-Robin Williams
Throughout history, the figures that have stood out that have exhibited the quality of creativity. This isn''t necessarily because they knew the most, instead its because their intense creativity drove them to produce or organize things in ways that hadn''t been done up until that point.
Granted, some have inherited more basic material for developing this quality, but how does one go about refining it and putting to use what we have on hand?
Few things can kill motivation for a project easier than viewing as something one has to do. Part of the reason I was so unmotivated in school is because the work that was presented to me required more of what seemed like going through the motions rather than creative thinking. Because that was the only reality that I knew I even began to think that it was expected of me to subvert my creativity and will to be able to fit in society. Since then I developed a passion for living proactively and accomplished more in a year and spread more positivity than I had up until that point. Cultivate passion, don''t turn it into work. If there isn''t a passion in your occupation, you will tend to go along with the motions and may even develop a hobby or passion just to get you through the day. If you aren''t too careful, you could end up in a cycle that keeps you in a job you hate just to support a passion that won''t take you anywhere. At the very least, following your passion could mean the difference between working for somebody and working with them.
Develop a personal relationship with failure, get comfortable with it. Instead of being scared of failure, become eager for it. View it as perhaps the best teacher. Failure can only show us the flaws in our approach if we let it teach us. If you aren''t failing at something, try increasing your ambitions just a tad.
Keep at it. If you perform an activity everyday over a long period of time you will develop not only mastery, but also a sizable catalog of previous works which one can rely on. For me it was a bit difficult to get into the habit of working out six days a week, but eventually whenever my body adapted and I experienced the benefits first hand it would likely be more difficult to get me to quit. It certainly can get dull at times, and most especially in the beginning when developing the habit. Eventually though, the skills and understanding that you have developed will enable you to create more elaborate or even elegantly simplistic works with greater amounts of ease. In the case of those with prodigious talent, its not so much about mastering the subject as it is about finding a set of challenges that grows at the rate your understanding does. This can mean the difference between opening up a new understanding of several interrelated subjects or mastering a succession of many different hobbies.
Imagine the big picture. Aside from wanting to see the work finished, one should imagine its uses afterward. This way one will be able to ease transitions and bypass creative slumps by already having thought of the next several steps in the plan. Picture one''s work as a never ending journey with many many steps. And perhaps the simplest and most central mindset, always ask why.
Switch modes, but still create. If you find yourself at a writers block practice on fleshing out some small concepts for an hour. If you are having difficulty getting a particular painting moving along, flip it upside down and start up again. If you need to work out the logic in a computer program, sketch out a model of the the pathways it would take. The point here is to keep moving. If all you end up doing is sitting in one place without placing any ideas into a framework, you are training your self to do that. Practice is a double edged sword.
Work in blocks. Generally after setting down I will turn my timer on for an hour and see just how much I can flesh out an idea. If I do not develop any ideas beyond outlines and sketches within a certain time period, I will switch to something else. This way I allow my brain to develop at its own pace. I reason that if I am unable to follow through with something at this point in time, I am still assimilating the foundations of that information. So I allow my mind to expand at its own pace rather than trying to force it to go beyond its capacities. The ground can only absorb a finite amount of rainwater at a time, anything else becomes runoff and interferes with efficiency. If however I am able to develop a solid train of thought I will often pursue it for several hours if not more until the project becomes completed or I run out of energy.
Give creativity an opportunity to grow. If you can''t be creative without some freedom and space, by all means give your creativity room to flourish. This might mean taking a different path from the norm. Part of the reason Einstein was Einstein is because he didn''t fit into mainstream academia and instead pursued an understanding of his own field. At the very least one could give one''s creativity more room to grow by turning off the TV.
Take creative field trips. Everybody needs to get out sometime, even the most obsessive amongst us. But when you do, do so with a purpose. After I finish writing for the day, I will take a walk and analyze nature, society, housing, ecology, and pretty much anything else that pops into my head on that trip. Over time I begin to develop an understanding of larger underlying or overlying patterns that then become inspiration for new avenues of exploration, while the material collected becomes a reservoir of material for the expression of that pattern. Creative fuel.
In the act of creation, one places a snapshot of their mind and self down into a framework. Because of this it enables one to reflect on themselves. It can show you things about yourself whether you are aware of them or not. It could say I''m bad at math or I have a bit of an ego problem, so I have to work on these things. Even if you don''t want to create, or you don''t want to look at your creation it can reveal things about yourself. If one creates enough, one can even develop a solid dialogue with their inner self so as to be able to better understand one''s own happiness and to live more in tune with one''s values.
Strangely enough, for me its essentially my social sonar. I can''t rely on facial expressions, tones of voice, or pretty much any of the unwritten rules of society because I can''t properly sense them. Instead I keep a model of the previous reactions to myself and work then will predict reactions in the future based of that information. Applied creativity enables me to explore both the inner and outer worlds to such an extent that I see and feel no barriers between them. It gives me the freedom and strength to be myself.
In the more physical realm, an increased reliance on your own creativity enables you to have more of a hand in the creation of your life. This as opposed to developing what I like to call a creative deficit and generally letting outside forces make decisions for you. The more that one uses their own creativity, the more one becomes aware of their own capacities, and the less one will begin to rely on arbitrary systems and institutions designed to provide for us or to make our lives more interesting. This could mean having the capacity to develop a skill to gain more independence on Friday night instead of drinking with the bosses to get a raise. It could be the difference between gnawing on the cage or spinning in the wheel.
Advanced Self Awareness
What is advanced self awareness? It is the understanding that your self extends beyond the reaches of your body as well as how it does so. It enables us to situate our lives and our actions to respond within a much larger context than what is immediately in front of us. While it may not be overly valued in society, I believe in the present and coming years it will prove to be very crucial to our advancement.
The way that I see it, humans are at a very special point in our development. We are conscious (when we want to be) and most of us can't see how we are all connected, how we are all part of the same identity. And those of us who can see it, frequently aren't in positions of power. So most of us end up doing our own thing and trying to run our own show. An example might be operating a successful candy business. Although it is economically viable and widely accepted, it still produces a product that is essentially bad for people and addicting. This is compounded in that those working at the business might even feel justified in doing so because of the securities and benefits, and even further compounded through subsequent interactions. For the most part, actions are generally viewed to be isolated microcosms with little negative effect on the greater world because our limited sense of self is fulfilled. Almost humorously, this attitude sits in the face of a much larger world than our minds can handle.
To get where we are atoms organized into molecules, which organized into molecular machines, which organized into cells, which organized into organs and systems, which organized into biological beings. So why stop there, why can't our minds organize into something even larger? While there isn't yet a unified global framework of exchange, there is the idea of one. The pattern is there, and the logic is based off of geometry and tension much like the aforementioned complex systems.
Ponder this, humans have minds that we use to interact with our world over a period of time, and time is the 4th dimension. So what if you could plot those points of interaction on a 4 dimensional graph? What if you could then make a structure or shape from those points and extrapolate an observable pattern unique to conscious beings which would explain how we interact and fit together? How much then would society function if a refined model of advanced self presence was understood and applied?
How does a person experience this? Tell me, what happens when you have opened yourself up to the point where you completely love something or someone? You realize that it is a part of you, that literally they are you. Tensions are relieved because you can express yourself fully through this medium. Your geometries become so intertwined and connected that you essentially share an identity.
If the immediately above paragraph doesn't make any sense to you, it is likely because you haven't yet accepted yourself. You might try starting there first.
Throughout history frameworkers like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and others have been providing a framework of exchange wherein they can change society for the better. This is not only because they saw the connections, but also because they lived congruently with their observations and constantly refined their approach. They showed us how we are all connected with their lives.
Fairly recently in the grand scope of things, mathematicians have joined the fray. Such as John Forbes Nash who described a situation amongst two or more competing groups wherein an equilibrium can be reached with all parties benefiting the maximum possible amount.
In the end, it wasn't about them. Its about everyone. Ultimately they couldn't do any good unless their message was received, applied, and refined by others. Their greatness came from their ability to show people the greatness that is within us all. If they were leaders, they were leaders of a chorus. They taught us how to sing and to not be ashamed of the sound of our own voice.
"I have my friends, my family, etc. and I am happy. I don't need to let anyone else in, I'm happy and secure. Why risk myself for someone I don't even know?"
-Jane Dough
Why stop there? Why not cut off everyone around you, then only use the parts of your brain and body that are necessary to keep yourself alive? This way you could completely eliminate your risk of seeing something that would cause you discomfort as well as the chance of hearing something negative from a loved one, so why risk it?
Try not to take that too seriously. But in all honesty if we aren't constantly striving to connect with each other and our surroundings we enable organizations to arise and flourish that promote division and fear.
This might have been viable from an ecological and sociological standpoint several hundred years ago, but things have changed. In today's context an individual can implement an idea and see a near immediate effect in society and the average person can upload a video and waste 4 minutes of someone from halfway around the world. If we aren't too careful we could just throw things out of balance.
Our best hope may be to develop an advanced and interconnected understanding of our world, but ultimately the currency to use it is love.
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