Mindful and Mindless Creativity
Introduction
When creating, there are two main modes of attention you can be in—we will refer to these as mindful and mindless. What they are is the active and passive expression of conscious will. It’s operating creatively either consciously or subconsciously. We will explain each in greater detail and review some examples and what good each mode of operation can provide the creative. It’s important to understand that neither is better or worse than the other, though we often attribute positive or negative meanings to these terms. We believe that living mindfully is a positive and mindlessly to be a negative, it’s a simplification of the complex construction of human consciousness and its perception and navigation.
Both are beneficial to creativity and art, but for them to be utilised in the correct way we need to understand what they are, what strengths they have and how we can use both in our creative process. It’s important to understand that they complement each other and work together to bring about our whole consciousness. We can act on three modes of consciousness - active consciousness, subconsciousness and superconsciousness. We won't be discussing the third: superconsciousness here and today, instead, we will only focus on active- and subconsciousness and we use the terms mindful and mindless to discuss them. We engage with everything in our lives using these modes - what will be discussed in this text is the creative side of this mental activity.
Mindful means active consciousness - this is when we actively engage our full attention, mind and consciousness with whatever is in front of us. We fill our minds with direct experience of what we’re doing. We don’t do it automatically but through direct exercise of will. Mindless is subconscious and means we engage with something without our full attention and perception - instead, we do something somewhat consciously or completely automatically. Most of the things we do on our day to day, are done mindlessly and the best example of both mindfulness and mindlessness is breathing. You’re probably not directing your perception to every single breath you take, but now thinking and being aware of it you’re directing your focus towards your breath and you can even control how deep the breath is and for how long you hold it. Actively perceiving and controlling this automatic bodily process is mindfulness, whereas the usual automatic flow of your chest is mindless.
Mindfulness
As you’re aware your consciousness is perceptive and it’s like a spotlight of focus that you can redirect both outwardly and inwardly. This is more than being aware and perceiving something - it’s truly about being conscious of something. This part of our brain is mostly engaged when we learn new things, to fully learn it and embody the teachings we must actively engage with them in our minds and consciously do them. After we’ve learned something like writing we often do not engage with it mindfully, instead it becomes automatic. We know what the letters look like and we do not engage our consciousness with the pen and the movement that forms the words, instead somewhat mindlessly we just focus on the inner speech which directs the movement of our hand. It can be beneficial to engage with our work mindfully and consciously now and then - both to improve but to also change our subconsciousness and the way we deal with things automatically.
Most things we do become automatic sooner or later, it becomes muscle memory and we do not engage with it fully conscious to save our brain power. This can be bad at times, especially when we at some point have engaged in a bad or damaging habit, the only way to unlearn that would be to actively engage with the same task in a new and conscious way and to continue doing it until it becomes habitual. If we don’t engage with the creation of our art consciously we run the risk of not improving, instead, we fall back into what we subconsciously do and like on rails we just go along. To improve and change our practices for the better we have to interact with them mindfully. But how do we do that?
The best way is to take the time when we are creating to think and meditate on the actions we take. Why this colour? Why this line? To focus intently on each action performed - and being mindful of not only each choice made but also of each movement as it is exerted. Focus on each breath you take, chew and taste each word and choose the next one carefully. Engaging with your work in this way will make you more conscious and aware of the creative process as you engage with it, and it allows you to rewrite and reprogram your subconsciousness. Because the danger of mindlessness isn’t in mindlessness itself, but rather in what information we have fed our subconsciousness; our active and mindful consciousness directs our automated activity.
The purpose of engaging mindfully is to control our work and own lives through conscious effort and willpower. It allows us to improve, be better and create what we truly want to. It’s the banks that direct our stream of consciousness towards the ocean. It is the northern star that ensures us safe travel towards our intended destination, it’s our compass and we must be able to read it and use it if we wish to arrive safely and in a timely manner. It’s our mindfulness that dictates over our mindlessness, and without engaging with it we run the risk of hurting our mindless activities. It’s then mindlessness can become a negative thing.
Mindlessness
While the word itself may carry negative connotations, subconscious expression is not inherently wrong. It’s widespread among creatives and artists of all kinds. It serves as a tool to understand the parts of ourselves we may be unaware of and it can help us understand ourselves better, but more than this mindlessness is also a tool for recovery and rest. Actively engaging with our mind every little task we do takes tremendous energy and effort, that’s why most of our actions and activities are done automatically so that we may prioritise our energy when we need it for more difficult or pressing tasks. You can imagine how mentally exhausted you would be if you had to think about and control every muscle and bone in your body as you move around, or to consciously consider every breath you take. It would exhaust you endlessly. Therefore mindless actions can be a moment of respite without slowing down your progress and development.
Creatively mindless automation of expression allows you to hone and practice your skills without burning out and overextending your mental capacity, and sometimes it can even help you get in the flow. Discipline and consistency are key to improving any skill and ability, and while the most apparent improvement comes from actively engaging with your practice there’s a passive level of doing that needs to be fulfilled for real breakthroughs. Tuning out and just letting your subconscious do the work can be a really beneficial way to get things done, and it allows you to put down the rough sketches for a work. It may give you the barebones to a great idea which you can then later consciously work together to fulfill. Think of mindless work to be like a stream of consciousness - you don’t need to analyse and think about every single word you write, instead just get it down and then later you can edit it and refine it. The first step is just doing it and doing it mindlessly can be helpful if you’re too tired or if you’re overthinking it. A lot of the time the Work just needs doing and you’d be amazed at what you can do if you just start to do it, and if you can’t engage with it mindfully then do so mindlessly, relax into it and just let it flow.
It can be very beneficial when creating that you’re in a relaxed and soft state of mind because if creativity is met with resistance you run the risk of creating a blockage. Your consciousness should ideally be flexible and adaptable to the forms your creativity takes and allow it to flow freely without hindrance. Being too conscious and aware can cause unnecessary blocks, it can be better to do it mindlessly and not think too much about it but rather feel it. This is something musicians know very well, if you overthink it and worry about being on time, being in the right key etc you just lose it. As soon as you tense up your mind can flow the way it needs to, but if you relax and don’t think about it you will find that groove and you can play without effort and it will sound good. This goes for all the arts, you need to let go of that tension and you need to let your mind be, don’t think just do it and let your body guide you, trust your intuition and your subconscious. Personally, I do a lot of both automatic writing and drawing, it’s something I’ve always done, both my writing and visual arts are often filled with streams of consciousness, and my personal experience with it is mixed.
For as long as I can remember I have doodled and done things while listening, it helps me focus and take in the information better if I’m doing something with my hands. This mindless activity allows my mind to focus on what’s being listened to better, or vice versa at times. I often listen to podcasts, essays or music while creating as it helps me focus on the Work at hand. It allows me to turn off my inner dialogue and just tune out for a bit and it helps me get work done. Later on, I meditated on my work and writings and when art is created subconsciously it takes a little extra to understand the ideas expressed within it, it’s almost occult and hidden, even from myself. Maybe there is no meaning but that which is self-imposed by the perceiver, nonetheless looking back at what one created mindlessly with mindfulness allows one to see new layers and dimensions to it, and sometimes it just starts to make sense. Art then becomes a subconscious exploration into the depths of the soul, both for the artist and the audience. Be wary, what you find there might scare you, and if you’re not in control of what you manifest on the paper somebody or something else is. This is the danger of automation - make sure you’re in control of the programming and do not just let any old program run its course it could be a mental virus.
What controls the subconscious is the active consciousness, and to relax and get into a state of mindlessness you have to do so mindfully. You have to shift your focus to your muscles, take some deep breaths and then turn your mind on itself - it’s only through your own control you can let go of that control. It’s only consciously you can do the mindless work efficiently and well. Both your hands need to work together and they can’t work against each other, the active consciousness serves as a leader of the subconscious, but it needs to be there pulling the weight and helping like any good leader. Without direction and control your subconscious can be a terrible thing, and it can give way to laziness and mind-numbing escapism.
Summary
Mindfulness and mindlessness have two different uses and are both important to creativity. Mindfulness is the active principle of consciousness and allows for the direct experience and control of willpower. It allows for real change and powerful growth and while it takes a lot of energy it is the most important way to approach all things in life - it is after all the affirmation that you’re living and that you’re in control, it’s the very manifestation of your free will. However, if you’re to navigate your entire life consciously you will find yourself drained, and to counterbalance you will have to engage with mindlessness, it’s a break and it offers breathing room for your mind.
To get things done and to progress on your Work it’s important that you can work without completely draining yourself, and mindless work is the perfect thing. There are some tasks you can’t do mindlessly as they may require a lot of focus and attention, but you will find there are a lot of them that are mindless and in a way meditate. Shifting your focus away from the art can help you create it, it can relax you and help you get into a flow. Some work requires a lot of hours, especially if you do a lot of detail work, tuning out of it and just getting on with it then is very important. It also helps consistency and discipline if you’re able to continue working without draining all your energy. Shift your focus elsewhere and let your body do the heavy lifting, let your mind be at ease. Let go of tensions and just relax. For your subconscious work to work - you have to use your active consciousness and your attention. With the right focus, you can achieve great things and you can let the flow do its thing. But you have to control that stream and see that it goes the right way.
Utilise both in the way that best benefits you and your work. They’re both two modes of operation from your consciousness that are there to assist you in this life, use them well and be conscious of your subconscious. Learn the secrets of your soul, that which has been hidden away in your shadow for so long. Greet it, welcome it and sit down for a heart-to-heart with yourself.
