The mysterious origins of conscious self-awareness
It’s early morning in a wide, steeped river valley, some several hundred thousand years ago.
Before nightfall, someone or something wedged its way into a crevice in a rock outcropping near the summit, instinctively settling there for a bit of warmth and protection, sleeping fitfully during the long, cold night.
It’s unclear whether this creature is a man or woman, or perhaps a newborn birthed during the night. It’s unclear whether or not the creature ate something unusual before going to bed or was injured by one of the many predators that roam these lands.
It’s unclear if the creature dreamt of something significant during the night, or if the creature even possessed the capacity to dream in the first place.
It’s also unclear whether the creature is of sound health—a model example of their own species—or some sort of strange mutation, a mutation rejected by their own brethren but destined to change the world.
What is for certain is that the outlook of one who bears witness to the dawn on this particular morning is remarkably different than the outlook of the one who went to sleep in the evening.
Not only is the creature aware of its surroundings, but it is also aware of being aware of its surroundings.
This creature awakes not only to the feel of the cold morning air and the visual contrasts of light and darkness, but to a new umbrella awareness that includes an abstract sense of time, the desire to be warmer and the capacity to do something about it, and a profound recognition of staggering beauty of the coming of day.
For the first time on the history of the planet, not only is it the dawn of the day, it’s the dawn of consciousness self-awareness itself, a newly emergent awareness with incredible capacities and awesome potentials, an awareness that you and I have inherited from our ancestors, and awareness inextricably linked with our creativity, an awareness that each and every one of us continues to both utilize and wrestle with today.
In this ten part series, I will be exploring the links between consciousness and creativity and presenting exercises for engaging and exploring both. So stay tuned, open wide, and let’s go deep!
About the author
Austin Hill Shaw is a creativity expert who works with individuals who want to unlock their full creative potential and organizations that want to build cultures of innovation. He is the founder of Creativity Matters, author of The Shoreline of Wonder: On Being Creative, and inventor of The Creativity Quiz.
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