Besides survival and reproduction, a human mind exhibits certain traits like being creative which gives mental orgasm. Creativity can be defined as “Randomness of neural pathway”.
This goes beyond survival and reproduction, self realization. Why would we need to look beyond survival and reproduction?
Evolution likes randomness, In fact, whole evolution is built on top of mutation or random choices that enhances the ability to survive in an environment. Of course it takes several failed attempts to hit the right combination. This affinity for randomness could be behind the creativity.
This love for randomness is linked to producing something unique. Human pleasures mostly happen when we produce something, say sex, orgasm is wired into our body to help human produce offsprings.
The creativity mostly comes inbuilt into every human in one or other ways. Human experience satisfaction when they do such innate creative things. Creative things trigger our emotions linked back to genes, triggering that satisfaction.
We need to investigate the act of randomness. Behind the randomness, there is an impetus to grow. Evolution could actually head towards more greater physical complexity and awareness. All living beings show this trait, to grow into a better version of themselves. Just two cells in an embryo absorb energy and can become a baby. A small seed can grow into a tree. As long as living beings can absorb the right energy, they can become complex version of themselves. Otherwise, everyone of us will just be eukaryotes9.
Not just living beings, but most things self organize to become the complex version of themselves. Look at the binaries, the underlying building blocks of all computers storage. The images, videos, documents you see, are internally just zeroes and ones. But they spread themselves into a more complex form.
Does this against second law of thermodynamics which says dis-order of a system increases over time? Not really, only the physical objects and universe follow the law, i.e., closed system. While concepts, evolution, and ideas tend to raise in complexity.
Look at a terrorist, a single idea pushes him/her to self explode. The idea itself spreads like a fire more than the person who produced that could do.
Coming back to creativity, creative mind produces unique things that has not existed already. This either benefits oneself or parts of human species. Other humans love such creative things since they differ from what they have seen so far, that could lead them to an improved complex form.
Anything new holds two possibilities, one enhances people lives or gets failed to do that. People love to see new things that increase our lives since it might increase our odds of survival or increase our collective complexity.
Does everyone of us exhibit our true potential to be creative? The day to day mundane things are keeping us from realizing the potential we hold. The great things were achieved by the people who dared to break the shackles and had the gut to look beyond the boundaries.
If we take the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, he says once basic needs like physiological, safety, belonging and love, social needs are fulfilled, human will look to self-realize, i.e., using one’s full potential. Humans involved in their highest creative act are more closer to this top level.
There are various ways on how people realize their strength, Mark Zuckerberg built what he loved while a student. This made him realize the potential within him. While buddha pursued truth behind everything. You become what you choose!
"Wind extinguishes a candle and energizes fire" - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The thoughts, that we have seen earlier, creates resistance to what we are capable of and is stopping us to reach our true potential. By witnessing the resistance, we can manage it efficiently. Our mind always keep predicting the future either as bad or good taking us away from the present moment. As we start to be aware of such mind swing, we will slowly get into the hands of present moment. The moment we stop to identify ourself with our mind, true liberation happens. Liberated humans hold infinite possibilities.
Should we worry about reaching our full potential? Death answers that. Life and death are like a person and his shadow, it stays so close to one.
Here are some life situations, someone returning after visiting his friend, someone in front of his dressing table, two sisters traveling on a motorcycle, a husband on his way to pick his wife and child. They all had one thing in common, they ceased to exist moment after those life situations.
Death can strike any time without warning. The whole beauty of life is in its impermanence. If something is temporary, should we really take it so seriously? What else can fulfil a life more than doing what we innately love to do?
To be clear, I am not asking everyone to strive to achieve big, but I am just asking you to be your best possible version. To go little deeper about what I said, we need to describe what is life. Life is being, while life might contain varying situations, the quality of being remains same. A few could derive complete satisfaction just by sitting under a tree with complete silence while a few others require to fly to Antartica to get the same satisfaction.
The inner state of being need not get affected by what happens outside. “Gain the world and lose your soul” as Jesus said. Look at a Zen master, face full of joy and innocence. How much does he possess to acquire that serene presence?
Famous lines from Steve Taylor,
"We weren’t born for constant conflict,
to spend our lives fighting for survival, competing for recognition
defending ourselves against oppression
with our minds infected with anxiety
and our souls corrupted with bitterness.
We were born for joy, and one day joy will return to us
as spring always returns, bursting with life and light
after the freezing winter." - Steve Taylor
Open the doors, wind will take care of the rest!
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