Frozen Thinking

Hola Everybody!
So, I have run into a problem with my apartment-decorating project. The ceiling in my entryway is a lot worse than I initially thought. I’m almost afraid of knocking off the loose plaster because it will entail extensive plastering and I’m not very good at that...

I might have to hire someone with plastering skills. My landlord is open to the idea, so I will be compensated. Still, it sucks having to stop painting. I guess I’ll move on to more prep work in the apartment. My plan was to paint the living room next...

Repost! but I don't too many people have read this one.

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Frozen Thinking
“Convictions make convicts.”
-- Robert Anton Wilson

I came across this quote and I had to laugh for several reasons. One is the simple but elegant truth of the words, another because I am a former “convict.” I like what the great French writer, Camus, said about convictions -- something about not dying for them because he might be wrong. LOL!

I am struck by the sense I get from both quotes: that rigid thinking, or adhering to rigidly held beliefs choke creativity. Oh yeah, did I mention I am obsessing about creativity? One common theme I hear coming up constantly is people’s need for more creativity.

Especially in the realm of work and relationships.

I hear it from people all the time: how they wished they could work at jobs where creativity is valued. The thing is this: creativity is a choice that can be taken anywhere at anytime under any circumstances. If I were to allow it (and sometimes I do), my work could quickly dry up into a dry set of rituals of paperwork and referrals.

Anyway, I wrote about the “enlightened” or open heart recently. Today I am reflecting on the opened mind. I would say, and I think it would be correct, that when people think of the creative mind, they think of a mind full of ideas and brilliant new insights. My own experience tells me the creative mind is both full and empty. It is able to create within itself a space for the new to arise. A creative mindset is constantly opening itself to the internal and external world.

My experience of the opened mind is that it can be relaxed and playful. It is filled with curiosity and wonder. The opened mind has a childlike quality about it. It loves to go off the beaten track, to explore paths not taken by social convention.

Playfulness is important. The opened mind likes to play with an idea or object, and enjoys looking at it as if for the first time. Try this one day: take a walk around your neighborhood and pretend you are a tourist. How does your perception of the mundane and “normal” things you see on an everyday basis change when you do this?

The opposite of that playful quality is what I call frozen thinking. Frozen thinking is what you get when you no longer think of possibilities:

“This place sucks.”

”My life would’ve been so much better without you.”

“I’ll never succeed in this shit job.”

Frozen thinking deals in absolutes, there are no possibilities in frozen thinking -- everything is preordained. Whenever someone begins a sentence with, You never... , or You always... you can be sure you’re in the presence of frozen thinking. In short, frozen thinking is the result of all our assumptions and beliefs about others and ourselves.

The open mind remains open to the possibility that we may not know everything there is to know -- and what we do know may be wrong. It challenges assumptions, makes new connections, finds new ways of perceiving the world. The opened mind can wander joyfully into areas others do not take seriously, and return with creations that must be approached in all seriousness.

Some of the most creative minds of all time have allowed themselves to drift into dreams states and extended meditations during which they have played with the irrational, the symbolic, the metaphorical, and the mysterious. Often they have returned with images that they translate into theories, compositions, and actions.

I would like to point out that people often mistake obsessive thinking with creativity. Nothing could be further from the truth. Creativity entails dropping the mental masturbation.not thinking (in the conventional sense). There’s a lot of letting go in the creative process -- a lot of “emptying out.” Creativity is about

This is a scary journey into the unfamiliar for me, personally. There are times some discoveries are so strange (LOL!) that I want to cover them back up and run. Whether exploring the depths of the human soul or the depths of matter, artists, mystics, scientists, and ordinary folks like you and I, come face to face with chaos and disorder. Still, the opened mind thrives on difference and remains open to the contradictory.

Love,

Eddie

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