Deep Thinking by Byers William

Author:Byers, William
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789814618052
Publisher: World Scientific Publishing Company
Published: 2015-09-19T16:00:00+00:00

5.13Letting Go

However just living in tension and incoherence is not enough. The creative idea is born out of intense absorption in the totality of the problematic situation. One works and works but eventually you take a break—go on vacation, read a book, take a walk, or just chat with your spouse and children. Archimedes took a bath; Poincaré went on a short trip; and it was then that the fateful idea burst forth. Why then and not when they were working so hard? The simple answer is that at that moment they allowed themselves to relax but the deeper answer is that “relaxing” means changing your mode of awareness.xv This means moving from the left hemisphere to the right or from focused consciousness to something more elementary, namely, Gopnik’s “lantern consciousness,” that is, from focused consciousness to an awareness that is unfocused and alert.

As I discussed in the last chapter, creativity requires the collaboration between mental processes that are housed in different hemispheres. It involves an alternation of left and right and so of flashlight and lantern consciousness.

Creativity involves a subtle use of awareness. Focusing takes an effort and an intention and we all have a feeling for what this means because focused awareness is our normal state of consciousness—the state that you are in when reading these words. Un-focusing is difficult to describe in words because when you are speaking or reading you are focused; the closest I can come is repeating the phrase “relaxed alertness” or “letting things be.” Think of a cat waiting for the appearance of a mouse from a hole in the wall—totally relaxed but totally alert—let the mouse show even a whisker and it’s all over.

Letting things be is often the most difficult thing for a conscientious person to do. It requires a kind of humility, a willingness to give up control. Remember the student who felt that he should be rewarded for the time that he had devoted to solving a problem. He didn’t know when to quit even if he was essentially spinning his wheels most of the time. How many of us have had the same experience! When do you say to yourself, “I’ve made all the progress I am capable of at this time. I’m going to bed and will pick this up in the morning.” If you can let things go and change gears you may find that when you sit down at your desk in the morning something has clarified itself in your mind overnight and a new approach to the problem occurs to you. Going to sleep is the easiest way for most people to alter their state of consciousness.

When I began to write books this is one of the most important lessons that I learned. The process involved alternate periods of ordinary, focused work leading, often, to an obstacle which, for the moment, seemed insurmountable. The next step involved just getting up and changing gears, letting go, and coming back the next day. To my amazement

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