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Note: This article was used in a project at my school to guide students in creative work. This project involved ~120 students, spanning four classes in a course in Technology. We worked in this project for around 5 weeks. In this text I guide the reader in understanding and exploring how awareness and mindfulness can help with creative work.

Introduction

The purpose of the text is to give an understanding into what awareness is and how to use it in combination with mindfulness of the senses, in order to enable a more undiluted access to creativity. The text starts with some basic concepts in order to orient the reader in the right direction. Later in the text, it will focus more on the creative aspect. In the end there will be exercises that can be used for exploration and discussion within a smaller group. It is beneficial to work through the text and do some practice before discussing.

Basics

Awareness

It is hard to define what awareness is because it is not a tangible/physical object but experientially it is rather simple to know what it is. Whenever you are aware, you know what is happening experientially. For example when you read this sentence you can know that you are seeing the text and vocalize the words in your head. By knowing the seeing and hearing the words you are aware. Awareness and knowing are closely related or the same “thing”.

The mind

The mind is something that exists within us and consists of thoughts, emotions, feelings, sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing. The mind can also enter some states that are connected with the body, for example tiredness, laziness, indifference etc. In meditation or mindfulness our job is to be aware of these sense objects.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness can be defined as the process of being aware of sense objects without mentally reacting to them. By being fully aware of these sense objects, it is not possible to mentally react to them. A mental reaction can be broadly classified as liking or disliking a sense object(s). Having a reactive mind conditions our behaviors in a certain way. Repeated mental reactions form mental habits that can form a personality/ego. mental habits can then reside in the more unconscious part of the mind.

By being mindful over time we start to experience the sense objects for what they are: Sight is just seeing, smell is just smelling, sound is just hearing, taste is just tasting, touch is just touching, thoughts is just thinking, feeling is just feeling. Emotions are a collection of sense objects such as, happiness, fear, sadness, frustration, irritation, anger etc., which also affects what happens in the body.

By being aware of sense objects we are experiencing whatever happens in the mind as it is. This is a prerequisite for understanding how you function and how you relate to these objects.

Concept vs. experience

A concept is a description of something that appears in our senses. For example if you see a dog, you might recognize the form of the fluffy thing and assign a label to that form as a dog. The dog in this case is a concept. Concepts are useful when communicating with words and

can simplify our practical day to day life but in terms of mindfulness it is not really important because it is not real. Labels such as a dog, tree, math formula, human, etc. in the context of mindfulness are just seeing. Seeing is part of reality. This is an important distinction to understand because mindfulness meditation does not happen when the mind is at the level of concepts. Contrary to seeing things as concepts there is the mindful way of observing, which is direct experience. By being aware one is experiencing things as it is and fully. Next time you learn something new, see if you are reacting or understanding it in the level of concepts or through experience with awareness. I am not telling you to stop forming concepts but instead be more aware of your sense objects.

Exercise: Seeing concepts. Look around in the room you are in now and start labeling things. That is conceptualizing what you see. Instead of labeling things, start to know that you are seeing; That is you being aware of the sense object: Seeing.

Acceptance vs controlling and avoiding experience

A common personal trait that many people have is to maintain control in most aspects of life. This is also true for what we perceive in the mind. Some sense objects we do not like. For example if a person has a traumatic experience he or she probably does not want this traumatic experience to happen in the mind anymore. This reactive way of relating to one’s experience is not productive as it does not solve the problem. By being aware and accepting all experiences that occur in the mind, one is integrating/dealing with whatever you find problematic in a mindful way. Experiencing what is perceived in a mindful way is a good starting point to understand your experiences. In other words: Stop manipulating/controlling your experiences to your preferences and start being aware.

Believing thoughts and emotions affect choices

If we are constantly aware and mindful of all sense objects, it is not possible to believe in the sense objects to be part of our personality (e.g. thoughts and emotions) because it is observed fully and we know them fully. On the contrary if we are not fully mindful and aware, believing in thoughts and emotions is a habit that we have. When we believe in our thoughts and emotions to be us, we believe that what we think is true and our emotions are true to us. Please observe sense objects fully and see whether this is the case! In some situations where a choice has to be made, our past beliefs in thoughts and emotions can come into our consciousness, which affects our choices. It is important to know that this way of reacting (it is a reaction to believe in a thought and/or emotion, but choosing to not believe is also a reaction), where you are not mindful can lead to choices that are not fully adapted to the current situation. Instead, stay mindful and aware as the situation occurs and be mindful of the thoughts and emotions that arise and choose the most appropriate or intuitive choice.

Mindfulness and creativity

Introduction

It should be stated that being mindful and aware does not necessarily make you a more creative person. What mindfulness can help with in the creative process is to clarify to you what you are experiencing. By knowing the sense objects they do not affect your decision as much, which in turn leads to a more nonjudgmental way of understanding your experiences. This is useful in order to be more genuine in your expression when dealing with the creative arts, because you are not affected by past conditioning (reactions). This in turn can make it more clear what you want to express in your creative work.

If mindfulness is used to deeply understand your life and experiences, thoughts and emotions do not play a vital role except that you should be aware of it as sense objects. If the creative process is concerned, one can explore thoughts and emotions when being aware and see how it can help you in your creative expression. Please do not get lost in thoughts, instead find a balance between being mindful and exploring thoughts and emotions for the creative arts.

Knowledge and creativity

During our classes when we create things, we always focus on the stakeholders. Which means we create things for other people or create things that solve problems for people. This is good if you want the product to be usable by many people. We want to shift this around and instead of doing something that helps others, you do something that you know is important to you!

To start with, If we just reflect on our years of school the vast majority of this time is spent on consuming knowledge and learning methods. Take mathematics or physics for an example where most traditional lectures consist of the teacher projecting new concepts upon students and teaching a method in how to solve typical problems. When the student understands the concepts and methods, he or she can go on solving similar problems. I would not consider

these problems as problems, as students already have a method to solve it. A problem is something that you do not know how to solve yet with your understanding. In the process of exploration/learning you will figure out how to solve such a problem. In this state you can form a method in which you can solve similar problems. This way of learning involves more creativity and the problem-solver has to find its own way instead of being served a method. This is what I call creative problem solving.

This way of learning where the students consume knowledge is not really a creative process. It is definitely useful in order to get started but does not encourage creativity, which is important. Creativity can be seen as the ability that can make you stand on your own two feet. With creativity you can create things of value. In this course, at this point we want the things you create using your creativity to be of value to you. We want you to be producers of knowledge using your creativity; Creativity is the driving force when it comes to being producers of knowledge!

To simplify this chapter I want you to become an artist in this part of the course. What is an artist? My definition of an artist is:

- A person that can express their creativity/vision through physical medium(s)

In our case creativity leads to new knowledge/value. But I want your creations to stem from you. You have to find out within yourself what you want to express through some physical medium(s). In other words, you start from your own perspectives and what you find is interesting to explore, and is important to you (not what others think is important for you)!

Exploring what is important to you

There is no path that can be outlined for you in the search of what you find is important. I can give some pointers just to orient you in a direction that can be fruitful. There are some general steps that can help you in this exploration. Note that the exploration should be introspective and not extrospective. You have to look within because this is an exploration of what you find is important and not what others say is important! Some guiding steps:

• Fine-tune the mind to acknowledge the senses that occur in the body by practicing mindfulness.

• Ask questions without expecting answers.

• Be open to and accept whatever happens in the senses.

• Question your answers whether they are true to you!

• Repeat the points above.

Other tips in exploring that also can help with staying genuine:

• Perceive without judging - See things as it is

• Knowing at the level of sense objects - Creates understanding and not reacting

• To observe and integrate experiences - To accept what you experience

• Being aware and open - Allowing creativity to flow

• Asking questions without expecting an answer - Directing creativity in a direction

• Take notes/scribble freely on papers whatever shows up - So you do not forget

• Question your answers whether they are true!

Practical instructions for mindfulness meditation

In its core when meditating, awareness must be in action. You are aware when you know what you are experiencing without judging or commenting on what is being experienced. Some mindfulness meditation practices add a mental note to sense objects, just to reinforce what is experienced. But if you know what you experience, a mental label is not necessary.

When doing mindfulness meditation it is important that you do not control your experiences. You have to allow all sense objects to be as they are. Your job is to be aware of sense objects. In other words, your job is to know the sense objects. Whenever you start your practice you should not expect any result from the practice. If you want results from your practice you are setting expectations on the practice, which is counterproductive.

Start by allowing everything to be as it is. No need to change anything. Check in whether there is any liking or disliking to anything within your mind. Be aware of that. Sit relaxed and aware for a couple of minutes.

Now we will pick an anchoring meditation object. This anchoring object is a “returning back to object” if we get distracted. We start by being aware of the rising and falling of the lower abdomen (the area below the navel) when breathing. Depending on what is natural breathing for you, the lower abdomen will rise or fall whenever you breathe in or breathe out.

When the lower abdomen rises from breathing, you know that it is rising. When the lower abdomen falls from breathing, you know that it is falling.

If your peripheral attention discovers another sense object, be aware of that and direct your attention to that sense object.

If you are thinking, know that you are thinking.
If you are seeing, know that you are seeing.
If you are hearing, know that you are hearing.
If you are smelling, know that you are smelling.
If you are touching, know that you are touching.
If you are tasting, know that you are tasting.
If you have an emotion, know that emotion. For example:
If you are happy, know that you are happy.
If you are angry, know that you are angry.
If you are frustrated, know that you are frustrated.
If you are irritated, know that you are irritated.
If you are “insert emotion here”, know that you are “insert emotion here”. If you feel lazy, know that you are lazy.
If you feel tired, know that you feel tired.
If you feel indifferent, know that you feel indifferent.
If you feel controlling, know that you are controlling.
If you feel something in the body, know that you are feeling.
If the object is located somewhere in the body it will be natural for awareness to also know that location.

After knowing the sense object, return to knowing the rising and falling of the abdomen.

Dealing with distractions

It is a very common thing to be distracted during meditation. A distraction is basically a loss of knowing for a brief moment. A distraction can also be seen as an instance of not knowing what you experienced in the level of sense objects. For example if you think about what you

should do after school and plan your next day instead of being mindful, that is a form of distraction. Whenever a distraction has occurred and you know that, you are returning to being mindful again. You can then return to the breath and be aware of the rising and falling of the abdomen.

If you find it hard to stabilize your attention on a sense object as it occurs you can just return to being aware of the breathing again.

If you find it difficult to be aware of the rising and falling of the abdomen (your mind cannot stabilize the attention at the abdomen) you can instead be aware of the feeling of the air touching the nostrils and the region between the upper lip and nostrils but also the nasal passage. This can then become the anchoring object in the practice. It is important to note that you should not control your breathing in any way whichever anchoring object you are choosing.

Everything is occurring naturally. Your job is just to be aware!

Find out for yourself what is true for you!

In society as of now and in education we are being told what we should do; Most feedback that we get regarding what we should do and not do is given to us externally. For example either from our parents, teachers or laws that the state of a country decides. We need to be able to look within us and find our own answers. Answers that you know are authentic/genuine to you and you know it is true for you. By knowing this you are living a more sincere and authentic life, and you do not just have internal understanding, but also choices to choose from that stems from your own findings/understanding. Life becomes more clear for you. You are living life and make choices that you can stand for; you have integrity. You also know what can change you and be aware of that, in order to stay free internally.

Please explore and do not give up! Follow-through your exploration and question your answers! Be aware!

Exercises

Before discussing the material it is beneficial to try mindfulness meditation. You can start with 10 minutes. If comfortable, work up to 15, 20 and 30 minutes. It is important to follow the practical instructions given above. It is important to not control your experience and stay aware.

For the discussions, form groups of 4-5 students and discuss the questions. It is important to listen carefully and try to understand what others are saying. After that, if you have something to contribute, please say what you think.

Questions for the seminar

Reflect on these questions before the seminar and listen to what the other students perspective on the subject.

Knowledge

• What is knowledge for you and what role does it play for you and society?

• What value does creativity have for you? How important do you think it is

• Discuss the difference between being a consumer of knowledge and a producer of knowledge. Which is more important or more useful and in what situations?

Experience

• If you reflect on your life so far, can you summarize if there is some general emotion occurring? How do you relate to those events? How should one relate to the events?

• Can you see anything in common in your experiences when doing mindfulness practice?

• What happens when you want to control your experiences? What happens internally?

• What happens when you accept your experiences? What happens internally?

Creativity

• What is creativity for you?

• Explore what happens when you get an idea. Where does it come from? Is it genuine or is it conditioned?

• What is creative problem-solving? What is a problem?

General

• What kind of life do you want to live?

• What is freedom for you?

• Explore what it means to be active based on internal understanding vs external understanding. Which do you prefer and why?

Practical Exercises

• Explore the contents of your mind

  • What type of sense objects occur within you? If there is a common theme, write down summarizing words for them.

  • How do you relate to the contents of your mind?

  • How do you handle distractions?

  • Why do you think the mind cannot be still?

• Practicing seeing without judgements

  • Walk around in the room or in school and look at objects. Start by labeling objects with their name and observe what happens in the mind? Now, be aware of the sense objects, seeing. What happens in the mind?

• Focus on a sense

  • Pick one of the senses and direct your attention to only this sense. If you pick hearing. Direct your attention to hearing everything. What happens? Try it for some other senses.

• Localizing emotions

  • If you get an emotion, sense where it is located and stay mindful. What is your experience?

• Summarize your thoughts and experiences on mindfulness meditation

What do I mean with the ability to act more genuinely?

It is action based on a less noisy mind, fueled by your core values and gut feeling.

Nowadays we are bombarded with information. We live in an information dense society where we react to information: Eye-catching headlines, chaos, war and all sorts of attention-grabbing information from our phones, computers, newspapers. There is information overload and we get easily sucked into all this purposely design content to draw our attention in.

I propose that we slow down what affects our attention, what affects our ability to make better decisions and reclaim our ability to act more genuinely.

I propose that we take some time, close down social media, do not watch the news and just start reflecting and contemplating where you are now, what have happened and what you want in the future.

Keep reading and learn how to affect life in the direction that you intend it to be.

Practice doing nothing

In order to affect your life in the direction you want it to go, you need to listen to your own voice. Before you can do that, all noise from the outside world have to diminish. Start by placing all distracting stuff away from you, place your phone in another room and forget it existed. Sit down and just sit. Observe you mind and it’s chatter. Is the chatter unique? or is it just mental patterns repeating. Focus.

Reclaiming your attention

Pro tip: Breathe in through your nose and be aware of the air touching the nostrils. Breathe out slowly and slightly longer.

Your mind will calm down.

Now sit still, be awareness, observing with alertness your mind. Do nothing

Do this for like 10 minutes.

With some time you will reclaim back your attention and be aware when it is hijacked by some external stimuli.

Congrats. You are now enabling you own voice in a more clear space so you can make changes in your life!

The space of genuine action comes from a more free mind

It comes from a mind that is focused, attentive to your own internal state, and clarity in observation. A more free mind is a more still mind. In this state you can ask questions, in a unstressful state, ponder on these questions, let them be in your mind and let the answers get revealed.

What I find helpful is to take notes on what the mind says and feel if you resonate with what conclusions you have come to.

After some time you might see a pattern in what you want to do. You might see what core values are important for you.

Congrats. You are a more purposeful being having a direction in life and can act accordingly.

If this post was helpful, please leave a comment on what the exercise revealed to you

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All good. Thank you, from the mind of Lin.

Stay attentive, clear minded and be stillness! Less is definitely enabling more in life!

An efficient learner is basically a goal-oriented person that is very focused and a person that has an ability to cull information that does not pertain to reaching his/her goals. Furthermore, an efficient learner has good foundational knowledge and practical knowledge, which will prevent stagnation in the learning process because you have good building blocks to start from.

The setup

In order to be able to maintain a focus over time, all physical and perceptual distractions have to be removed. Physical distractions can for example be smartphone usage or social media. Distractions in perception can be sight, sound, smell, discomfort and pain to mention some common ones. If you get distracted from certain sight objects, block off your working space so your view only contains what is essential for work. If the problem is sound you can wear ear plugs or listen to focus music: I think this is a good concentration track:

If you get distracted by discomfort, try to adjust your sitting posture and position so you can focus. Working from a dedicated place where these distractions are removed enables us to more easily get into deeper focus for quality work to be done. Another important aspect of the setup is when you are entering into this physical space. If you are entering it during your peak-performance-hours of the day and if you are not stressed, it does impact the overall performance of your working session in a good way. Listen to your body and mind. You probably know when you are the most productive during the day.

Focused breathing

In my experience, in order to enter a more focused mental space, meditation is very efficient along with slightly altered ways of breathing. Start by being aware of the body and sit in a relaxed posture. It is forbidden to fall asleep, so laying down is not a good idea unless you cannot sit. Become aware and focus on the breathing. Take a couple of deep breaths, just to calm down and settle into the meditation. Do not think about what needs to be done and do not have any expectations about having a good meditation/focus session. Just relax and be attentive. Now, when breathing out, make the out-breath slightly longer than the in-breath. This will help the heart to calm down. Keep maintaining the focus on how the breath feels in the body. The breath enters the nose and travels to the lungs and down to two finger-widths below the belly button. It is not physically possible to bring air down to the belly button but the process of breathing engages the abdomen so it starts to move. All These sensations are your target of focus. After a couple of minutes direct your focus to the sensation of how the air enters the nose: The air touches the upper lip, nostrils and nasal passage. Be aware of these sensations as long as you can. The sensations will get hard to detect as the body switches from in-breath to outbreath and vice versa, but be aware of that also. With time, your focus will be improved. Do this daily.

Hone in on what needs to be accomplished and prioritize action

When still in the focused breathing state, make a focused intention of accomplishing a simple goal. A simple goal is time-limited and where you know the process of how to finish it. Identify tasks that are simple to finish and contribute to your goal. You have to prioritize action over finding ways of how things should be done. It is better to actually pick a way of doing things that is less optimal than spending time on finding the optimal way of doing things, which will require too much context switching and information processing rather than staying focused on accomplishing your goal.

Foundational and practical knowledge is the building blocks of productivity and advancement

Having good fundamentals (see post) is important because it will help you advance towards task completion. It is not very productive if you do not know how something is done, which will stop your progress towards task completion. The goal of your work or study is task completion, whether that is to learn a specific topic or finish some work. I cannot stress how important basics are, because they are the building blocks for accomplishing more complex tasks and goals. Your task should be simple enough so you know how to finish it. That means you can use your building blocks (fundamentals) to accomplish it, whether the end-result is complex or not. If a task is complex (the output is non-trivial), meaning it needs simpler building blocks to finish, then the task is still manageable and a good task for reaching your goal in this working session. In fact, when you have improved within a certain field and you know how to finish more complex work. The output of the complex work will be easier for the mind to process and thus helpful for future work. Let us look into a simple example. When you first learn math you have to learn the numbers and what those represent. After some time, you become more proficient in counting and can advance to learning basic arithmetic operations, which combines the knowledge of counting with operations like addition, subtraction etc.. The knowledge of counting will be second nature to you but not the arithmetic operations, but with practice and time it will also become second nature to you. This knowledge will then become the building block for more advanced mathematical understanding such as modeling and solving equations.

Identify bottlenecks and distractions

If you follow the instructions from above, by improving your focus and picking tasks that prioritize action along with having good fundamentals, you should have entered a very productive state. The thing with states is that they always change. Sometimes you can maintain it for longer but sometimes it is not enough for the session. In these cases probably some distractions have entered into the mind. When this happens, remind yourself of your goals and do not get stressed up or feel any performance anxiety. Be aware of the situation and feel in the body and mind what is going on. Make corrections and consider the guidelines above in order to refocus and redirect your intentions back to your tasks and goals.

During a session you may enter a bottleneck situation, which is a dip in productivity. This can be caused by fatigue, hunger, etc.. In that case if it is hard to refocus, then it is better to take a break and resume work when you are ready. Sometimes you also need to context switch (do another task that requires some initial mental setup/switching) during a session, for example when you have finished a task and need to do another one. A tip is to switch to a related task that you know how to finish and go on with that. For example if you are working in processing tables of data in Excel and has finished that task and need to go with something else, it will be a better choice to pick something similar like processing some other tables of data with the same work process, rather than switch to something like researching on articles of interest for your work. For learning, it is better to focus on doing tasks that reapplies and reaffirms basic concepts so it settles in memory, rather than switch to something entirely new. Swithining to something new is required in order to advance your learning but make sure that you know the basics first.

Summary

The efficient learner/doer is a goal-oriented person that has good concentration and fundamentals. If you want to read more about how to live a more directed life, i.e. if you want to know how to live a more fulfilled and goal-oriented life, please read my post about finding your core values and building good basics: Directing life

In our day-to-day life we get easily distracted in different ways or more precisely, in layers. We get input from people around us about how things should be or what you should and shouldn't do. We also get distracted from our thoughts and emotions in our mind. Nowadays, in this information society, answers to our questions are just one web-search away. We are bombarded with information from our smartphones, which we have a really hard time not fixing our gaze at. Our minds are always looking for solutions to our problems and we act on the information that we think is good for us. Let us not forget that we also have emotions to deal with, which affects our day-to-day decisions. All these factors affects our decisions, and in the long-term, our direction in life and ultimately our contribution in life.

Calm down, start intentional and focused reflections on your core values

In order to have an honest reflection about what you find is important to you, a firm and clear intention have to be made to actually start an exploration (by asking questions and feeling). This requires a distraction-free mind and environment. Put away anything that is distracting you from calming down and focusing at the moment. We need to calm down our mind but also increase the focus (concentration) so we can clearly ask questions and find our core values.

Having done that, one can start asking questions and not look for answers directly. Let the questions sort of ferment in you by leaving an impression in your mind and body. Be very attentive of your experiences in the mind and body. After a while, the mind or body might give you hints in forms of memories or thoughts. Be very clear of what you are experiencing, without rejection or denial, but also without clinging to the experiences. Feel in the body how it feels and feel its relevance to the question.

Be careful of the habit of believing that something is good or right/wrong for you because it can be conditioned thinking passed down from parents or someone influential. We want our experiences and conclusions/answers to be genuine. Think of the conclusions/answers to be something that you can stand behind or have a firm understanding to being important/right for you. You probably found one of your core values now. Write down what your conclusions are so you don’t forget them. In order to not forget and solidify your core values, you have to take actions with these values as the backbone of your decisions in life. If you find that your core values changes over time, then you have to repeat the process again.

Useful questions to ask

Here are some questions that you can use of in order to help you find your core values:

• What do I find is important for me in life?

• Is that really true to me?

• What did I do when I felt the happiest?

• What did I do when I felt the most fulfilled?

• What did I do when I felt the most accomplished?

• What did I do when I felt that time just flown by (in a good sense)?

• What personal traits do I value the most?

• Why? Is it really so, or are these traits preconditioned thinking?

You can also look through your life in a focused way by being very clear on what you are experiencing in the body. Let whatever you are experiencing be as it is without condemnation and maintain clarity of observation, not wanting to change or alter anything. Feel.

Enabling the possibility of a more directed life by having mental clarity and focus

By mental clarity and focus/concentration, I mean the ability to know (clearly observe) what is experienced and maintain this focus on the experience as long as it persists. It might seem a little farfetched how this ability maintained can help us in our day-to-day life. This ability is important because it enables us to maintain a stable mind and direct our focus to what is important to us. It also enables us a more honest exploration of our experiences and help us find our true core values. Having our core values determined, life can become more directed and you can more easily prioritize what is important for you and let go of other things that you know are not as important. Having a stable mind also helps you towards your goals because you can more easily determine with higher degree of certainty what is required of you by yourself and not get affected and distracted by opinions of other people. This means you are living your life and not someone else’s life.

Building foundational understanding for a more adaptable and creative life

In my experience, having good foundational knowledge (in whatever field or practice you are interested in doing), but also having good understanding of your abilities, strengths and weaknesses, is a good enabler of a more creative lifestyle. But having a clear and focused mind is a core-ability for deeper understanding. By understanding the core in whatever you are pursuing, you can create something that has a solid foundation for creative output. Let’s take a very concrete example: I practice Kungfu in my free time. I have in fact practiced martial arts for around a decade. It is very clear to me that having a solid foundational and practical knowledge in how the basic stances and movements are done, will enable me to perform more advanced routines that require good basics. With good basics the routine is executed well and as intended. With bad basics you might not even be able to finish the routine or it might look awkward (not executed with good form). Or, in the worst case, you might injure yourself. Having good understanding and being able to perform the movements and stances well, I can use this to create my own new routines. Having good foundational understanding along with clarity of mind will help you adapt to changes in life. By also having a direction in life and know with some degree of sureness what is important to you, it will become more clear when you are not moving in the direction of your values or goals.

Creativity or problem-solving start from simplicity and from an intention of providing value

Everything that is created and that looks complicated, starts from simplicity. Complexity cannot exist without simplicity; in fact complexity is spawned from simplicity reapplied over time with clear intentions. It is very hard to build or create anything complex directly because it will be hard for our minds to grasp its building blocks. With good foundational knowledge and starting from simplicity, it will be easier to solve your problems or finish your creative work. Simplicity enables incremental progression in your creations. Or when it comes to living life, it enables incremental improvement and moving towards your goals in life.

Nothing is yours. Give value to others with your creativity

Creativity is the fuel for value for you and others. It is sprung out from genuine actions in the mind that is expressed physically in your life. Therefore, it can be of value for you and others. We are sort of living meaningless lives, but the beauty of existence is that we can define what is meaningful for us by reflecting on our core values. These core values give us a direction in life, and with a clear and focused mind along with good foundational understanding, one can create value for oneself and others. It is important to not take ownership and attach yourself to your creations because when time comes for you to leave this place, you cannot bring anything with you. Not even your body. Therefore, it is better to give value to other people and leave something better for the next generation. Take a more active part in the evolution of mankind. What you leave behind after you is entirely up to you. Please make a very clear decision of what that is.

BCCE - Basics Core Creating and Evolution

The contents of this post are reflections on my core values and boils down to the triangle below:

The purpose triangle above helps me re-orient my decisions when there is too much noise from my surrounding, too much requirements from others. It helps me prioritize action that are in alignment with what I value the most.