Filtration
Do you ever stop and think about how much information your mind takes in? It's overwhelming. At any one moment, there are hundreds, thousands, even millions of bits of information bombarding your senses. Take a moment right now and observe the vast number of objects within your field of vision. Notice the myriad sounds vibrating your ear drum. Think about all the different smells you experience throughout one day... Our senses could overwhelm our mind with information.But, we have a built-in filtration system. Our brain is constantly at work helping us to focus on a few vital pieces of information at a time, while all the other information gets discarded into some mysterious mental trash-heap.
It's fun to think about this while driving. It helps demonstrate the principal that what you focus on will come to you. For instance, if you are going through a passing fascination with a particular type of car, let's say a Nissan Exterra, suddenly you see that car everwhere. "What a coincidence," you tell yourself, "that, after I read about them, there are suddenly so many Nissan Exterra's on the road." The truth is, the same number of Exterra's are passing you as before, but now your mind doesn't filter them out as unimportant. A brain cell has written itself a post-it note to keep an eye out for a Nissan Exterra, and to not let it go to the trash heap without further observance.
I'm butchering the science of how this works, but there is a principal to be noted here for creative types. What would happen if we started paying attention to our filtration system a little bit better? What valuable images and inspirations could we discover that before would have simply been ignored and discarded? That guy with the blue hat who just got on the bus just might be the inspiration for a main character in a novel. The train that's holding up traffic could inspire the rhythm of your next musical composition. Perhaps the arrangement of crows on your front lawn could be the subject of the next stanza in the poem you've been stuck on. The possibilities of what you could discover are endless.
Let's take this a step further. Often, the creative personality is criticized for being overly sensitive. You've heard it before: "You're too intense." "Lighten up a little bit." "You take everything so seriously." "You need thicker skin." While that might be good advice for artists at times, it's usually a load of hooey. We are artists. If we're not the sensitive ones, who will be? It is our place and calling in this world to experience things on a deeper level than the average individual. Movies should make us cry. Paintings should make us gasp. A beautiful fountain should make us laugh out loud with delight. We take these extraordinary experiences and turn them into works of art to enrich the lives of others.
So while the rest of the world shields itself from tragedy, beauty, inspiration and the like, we ought to be soaking it up like insatiable sponges.
posted by @ 2:49 PM
1 Comments:
How awesome...that was so inspiring. Thanks!
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