Taking a closer look at our waking consciousness, the type of consciousness we use to maneuver the manifest world around us, we notice that we are constantly tweaking it to meet our various needs. In the same way a photographer is continuously playing with light to capture the essence of her subject matter, we are continuously playing with consciousness to suit the tasks of the day. And like the aperture of the photographer’s camera, we can widen and narrow our consciousness to let in varying levels of stimuli in to allow our creativity to flourish.
When we drag ourselves out of bed, for example, many us hop in the shower, not because we are particularly unclean, but because the water running over our skin enlivens us, allowing us to feel more present, helping consciousness itself to transition from one state to another. Once in the kitchen we continue the process, eating something to fuel our metabolic functions and, for many of us, choosing a hot, caffeinated drink furthers our process of waking up. Then and only then are we willing and able to charge into the tasks of the day.
This sort of waking consciousness is vital for the active portion of creativity, allowing us to focus our attention, to plan and carry out those plans, to solicit other people’s advice and ask for their help, ultimately working to make our creative insights into a reality.
Our behaviors on the other end of the time card also tweak our waking consciousness. As the work day draws to a close, we grow weary of being productive and begin craving other experiences, either to relax, wind down, or to open up to other, more playful parts of our consciousness, parts that aren’t always appropriate in our work environments. Some of us go to the gym, thereby cutting through our headiness and accumulated stress by vigorously activating the body. Some of us go to the bar for a beer or a glass of wine, the alcohol loosening the reigns of our task-oriented minds. Some of us eat our biggest meal of the day at that time, the flood of carbohydrates and proteins also altering our mood. And some of us dive into the television or the internet, our awareness drawn into and delighted by the convolutions of scripted dialogues and virtual worlds. In other words, we reverse the process we started in the morning, using a variety of methods to let our waking consciousness unwind and move in the direction of a more dreamlike conscious reality, or to check out all together.
These latter types of activities are vital for the more passive aspects of creativity. Letting down our guard, widening our focus, looking up beyond the confines of our day planner and task lists, and, in general, expanding our awareness is typically what leads to the coveted experience of creative insight. In such moments of relaxed, expanded awareness, the coveted a-ha! of creativity is most likely to occur.
Austin Hill Shaw is a creativity expert, author, writer, architectural designer, and mapmaker of creativity across art, science, and religion. He specializes in helping others tap into and utilize the creative life force in everything they do. He can be reached at austin@austinhillshaw.com.