Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Can We Change the Underlying Game, Fundamentally?... by Understanding How We Continually Truncating Our Options?



The game I am speaking of is the structure through which we perceive and thus conceive of ourselves and the world around us. If you were to distill down how you perceive the world into a paragraph, a sentence and then to a word, what would it be? I have found the word for me both surprising and sobering. I invite you to consider the question in a quiet moment, concluding with the word that best representing your present construct of your Universe.  


The word that best reflects my current, that is not daily, or weekly, but persistent world view is "polarity." I do not mean duality, contrast, or even dichotomy, but opposition in a way that stops possibility. As a visual artist, my orientation is creating, which I distinguish here from creativity. In creating, I speak of making something that was not there before you conceived of and created it. It could be a business, a meal, or the idea in a conversation. Creating is also different from problem solving. Although many problems arise in the creative process, overcoming them supports a greater vision and is not the goal in and of its self.

The structure of polarity does not invite creation because the two ends of the spectrum fight each other. In my studio life at last polarity is not an active dynamic, however in the rest of my life the conflict between negative and positive valence often truncates my options. The word valence is usually used in psychology in relation to emotions. In different cultures, eras, and even in relation to gender, the same emotion can considered negative or positive. That some emotions are better than others is a value judgment, an example of how our teaches us to think in polarities that is not necessarily there.


Karla McLaren in her book, The Art of Empathy, a Complete Guide to Life’s Most Essential Skill, talks about the how intense research on empathy is happening worldwide in more than a half dozen academic disciplines. Neuroscience is revolutionizing our thinking about feelings. There is more and more agreement that any emotion that comes up is valid, and emotions in and of themselves do not have a negative or positive valence. No emotion is invalid. How it feels and what you do with it, of course, is another question.

Emotions are indeed a natural response that causes damage only if repressed or acted out. Creating emotional polarity of good and bad lessens the opportunity for accurate perception, growth, healing and understanding. Emotions are a lucid example of how we are enculturated into polarity-based thinking which truncates our possibility of creative response. We have done the same thing when we pitch the masculine and feminine against each other. They are not opposites. They are compliments, for they inform each other. We have recently witnessed in our country the state of congressional dysfunction when the two political parties are polarized.

What is it exactly that attaches us to positions of right/wrong, good/bad? It is not principles of ethics,I believe, but identity. That is what we can or want to identify with over-rides our values. The more we react without reflection, the deeper the ruts of our polarities. We have all heard of Viktor Frankl, the Austrian psychiatrist and survivor of Auschwitz. He had a first-hand experience of what one might call clear-cut polarity of right/wrong or good/bad  and yet he did not identify himself as victim. This is what he learned from that experience. 


Between a stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. The last of human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.


Let us consider identity in the realm of those in a culture who are creating with an identity which allows them to go beyond the rigid constructs of the norm. There have always been a few who were able to hold their identity loosely and expand what was thought infeasible. They have a curiosity and willingness to play and work which factors which cultural norm feel contradict each other.


There have always been a few who were able to hold their identity loosely and expand what was thought infeasible. Let us consider those in a culture who create with an identity which allows them to go beyond the rigid constructs of the norm. They have a curiosity and willingness to work with factors, which like Frankl, do not fall into the construct of polarity. 

Within inter-disciplinary research many old beliefs of creativity are being discarded. After 30 years of research and the publication of his now famous ‘flow’ theory, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has worked with ‘creatives’ including; Nobel Prize winners, Poets Laureates,  and well-known authors, composers and artist of all disciplines.  In his book Creativity, he interviewed one hundred creative people across a range of professional fields.  Contrary to popular myth, one of their common characteristics is a generalized equilibrium is the enjoyment of life with a constant willingness to expand the edges of what has gone before -- they are adept in the art of internal adaptation as life conditions change because they see more options than most of us. I know personally know how the roller coaster of doubt and elation in the studio can undermine or support the creative process.

Linda Graham in her book, Bouncing Back, Rewiring Your Brain for Maximum Resilience and Well-Being uses the latest research in neuroplasticity of the brain to prove that what we once thought was hard wired is not.  Here are just a few of the kind of awareness shifts that help you rewire your brain for resilience, well-being, and I would add, more possibilities for creating. In the book she offers exercises that help you to see different perspectives, create new options and discern choices, interrupt self-talk, and facilitate deeper brain integration as a way of reconditioning old identities.

Many of you have experienced life crisis and debilitating diseases, first hand or through loved ones, and have experienced the opportunity to step into a larger identity. Modern day cataclysmic disasters, as well as diseases of epidemic proportions are the vehicle of identity transformation. But, we do not have to wait until we or a loved one is stricken to expand our identity with greater understanding of the larger spectrum of life through which we are passing. It is a creative act to notice where you polarize, and consider how the dynamics of would totally change how you perceive the situation.