unself consciousness
The kind of
u n s e l f – consciousness
I’m thinking about becomes clearer to me when I turn to a different discipline: for instance, that of playing a Bach fugue at the piano, precisely because I will never be a good enough pianist to play a Bach fugue as it should be played. But when I am actually sitting at the piano, all there is for me is the music. I am wholly in it, unless I fumble so badly that I perforce become self-conscious. Mostly, no matter how inadequate my playing, the music is all that matters: I am outside time, outside self, in play, in joy. When we can play with the unself-conscious concentration of a child, this is: art: prayer: love.
via Maria here:
“A Wrinkle in Time” author Madeleine L’Engle on self-consciousness and the wellspring of creativity https://t.co/8ldDQSDc4s
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/brainpicker/status/1029729950713167872how letting go of the illusion of a static, solid self uncorks creativity:
When we are self-conscious, we cannot be wholly aware; we must throw ourselves out first. This throwing ourselves away is the act of creativity. So, when we wholly concentrate, like a child in play, or an artist at work, then we share in the act of creating. We not only escape time, we also escape our self-conscious selves.
The Greeks had a word for ultimate self-consciousness which I find illuminating: hubris: pride: pride in the sense of putting oneself in the center of the universe. The strange and terrible thing is that this kind of total self-consciousness invariably ends in self-annihilation.
it requires nonjudgmental observation and discovery
I haven’t defined a self, nor do I want to. A self is not something static, tied up in a pretty parcel and handed to the child, finished and complete. A self is always becoming. Being does mean becoming, but we run so fast that it is only when we seem to stop — as sitting on the rock at the brook — that we are aware of our own isness, of being. But certainly that is not static; for this awareness of being is always a way of moving from the selfish self — the self-image — and towards the real.
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from heal (doc):
46 min – bruce: the nature of biology is simple.. bio organisms adapt their biology to fit into an environ.. ie: liver is not touching the environ.. it depends on nervous system to send info so cells adjust bio.. one problem w that.. consciousness is an interpretation.. so my mind is interpreting the environ.. so if i change my perception/mind/belief about life.. i change the signals that are going in and adjusting the function of the cell.. significant.. i .. by my ability to change my environ and perception of environ have the ability to control my genetic activity.. i’m not a victim of my heredity.. i’m a master of my genetic activity.. there’s a mind between the environ and my cells.. the mind is comprised of 2 interdependent elements working together.. conscious and subconscious
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