Dear reader,
We have come here to talk about thinking.
The study of the human brain is a mystery through which the sciences travel; that is glimpsing, from research and through time and technology, some conclusions and certainties about how this our little giant of human reality works.
But the truth is that the human brain remains as a great mystery and is also alive.
We are alive.
About thinking, we found a very old story in which we felt like so many other times : a prisoner at the binary fork in the world of opposites. . .
But do not worry, this time we are not going to conclude the speech with a closed option, but a variety of options. In this text, you will find a refreshing story : a spotlight that illuminates the third option (In Kabbalah, the number 3 represents the synthesis, the unfolding energies, reconcilation between the parties involved, the son of both forces).
Paradoxically, and like a movement that repeats itself over and over again, we find a story with a pattern: in this story there is always a landscape, and in this landscape there are two rivals. It looks like a fight between brothers. They could be Cain and Abel, or Enki and Ninmah.
Or they could be the feminine and the masculine, the moon and the sun, or convergent and divergent thinking, which is the subject of this reflection. The old story is that there are two that compete, or that complement each other.
How about we change the story that we tell always?
Great. Now the landscape is thought.
When we observe and look at the brain, we perceive that how wide and infinite space that it is.
Science has flown over the brain like a bird and from that aerial vision it has divided the brain into two halves.
Can you see them? Well, much has been written and researched about these two parts and as a result of these observations science attributed different characteristics to these two sisters: The right part of the brain was given the magnitude of a thought that diverges and yet the left part of the brain converging thought forces were attributed to it. Two opposite movements.
HAPPINESS
NAIVETY
EMPTY*
It seems to us that thinking transversally is not thinking. That’s the feeling.
We are not in control, We are not defensive of myself, We are more and more subtly connected to trust. From here We can observe with more distance… life outside of us. That includes our ego, which we feel is an outer layer. As from this place we are not afraid, because we are not afraid of life or death, at least not as much as before (it occurs to us that this state is further from death and a little closer to infinity) We allow ourselves to create.
To create is to observe our own occurrences with curiosity.
What we observe in reality and it tells us: When we look around us, space has an enormous substantial complexity: objects are characterized by their position, their density, their colors, how they emanate the light reflected in their bodies and uncover tones on its surface, what the textures are like and how space and light vibrate through matter.
Now We are at peace. We can see that the world is not defined, but somehow like Shiva, we have a half-open gaze: we can identify things but there is no solid definition of them.
In this landscape everything is changing, vibrating, and open. It could be this way, but what is interesting is not the result, the magic is in the game of finding solutions without feeling that you have a problem.
On the other hand, they say that thought converges or is vertical, and this one is obsessed with the solution, and perhaps it is the rush, the immediacy, that leads him to generate quick equations to solve the problem. It is effective. It is based on experience and on the concrete.
But there is another story. There is a story in which the sisters do not fight, they are not divided, there is no defined and static light and shadow because there is a continuous movement: in this story the thought is many parts: Now the landscape is full of very diverse natures , even dystopian or antigravity. Look at the brain from above again. Now there are no longer two halves, you are actually flying over a thick green forest. There is everything in this landscape. Each molecule dances, and all the forms of the world are generated here.
If we can see the brain in this way, and this vision is reinforced by scientific research, divergent thinking would be the process and result of a dance between many parts of the brain that usually communicate separately. When we are in a state of creativity, the energy would now be traveling from one side of the brain to the other, creating a plural composition. From this place, where reality undresses plastic and mutable, the solutions and information about the world are infinite and creative, and from this point the human being opens new paths and reinvents himself.
So, artistic disciplines and creativity leave us, among others, two interesting concepts at the brain level: neuroplasticity and neurogenesis; the functioning of neurons when they establish communication with each other and the process by which new neurons are generated from stem cells and progenitor cells. Movement, communication and birth.
The arts are one of many paths to travel to allow creativity to permeate human beings and unfold their harmony. When we create we are being horizontal, because there is no anxiety to find a concrete solution. We are willing to resignify what has sprouted.
The ability to influence the white of the paper is a creative act: when we paint with my brush outwards, we are actually caressing the paint that we carry inside. The abstraction of painting, even looking for a clear and realistic image, is built from a very complex decision-making and experimentation in which the colors, the line, the stain, the format and the countless constructive experiences are involved. conscious and unconscious of the individual. Creating is an abstraction.
So the arts open up the range of possibilities of thought because they generate what Mihály Csíkszentmihályi outlines in his seminal work. “Flow”: a state of concentration or complete absorption in the activity or situation in which the person finds himself; and this state of creativity could be defined in the following characteristics:
Fluency, which enables us to have a large number of ideas.
Flexibility, with which we create disparate responses to different proposals.
Originality, with which we produce unusual ideas.
Elaboration, with which we develop and improve ideas.
Acceptance, with which we can invent new states and transmute them.
Now, how can we use the neuroplasticity of the brain? Very simple: stimulating it!
There are no alternatives. If we face daily challenges with the same formulas or patterns, new synapses will not be generated, their variety will be less and, therefore, we will be less creative.
Below we dissect a practical example in which the body, movement and the present are the protagonists of the alchemy of the creative.
