As purveyors of attention, we humans float the continuum from passive observers to active creators.
Today I create as a writer, and as a house painter, while I create my emotional experience. On occasions I get caught, trapped, in my creations. My attention becomes fixed. I loop over, under, and around, being magnetized to my creation.
In the Gurdjieff work we called it identification. In Buddhism it is called attachment. From the Avatar seminar it is labelled fixed attention.
My mind won’t let go of the experience, and my judgements of the experience.
How long can it take to get out of a creation?
Discreation can seem an event of epic portions. Novels often follow the format of being trapped in one’s creation. If there is a lie involved, it becomes a drama. If its life, it can escalate to war.
How long will the Jews and Palestinians stay in their animosity creation?
How long will the USA stay in its police creation?
How long can I stay attached, upset, confused, undecided?
As long as us creators decide too!
In the 1980’s Ron Smoothermans’ book, Winning Through Enlightenment, the major message was that forgiveness was choosing to make your life work.
In the movie Garden State, brilliant writer, director, actor Zach struggles thru anti-depressants fogging his being. His love interest, the former mother of Luke and Lela Skywalker, Galactic Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman), catches Zach in a creation.
“You’re in it aren’t you?” She asks a checked-out Zach.
From the flat look of Zach’s face, he checked out of presence into a memory.
It is a tender moment when consciousness reveals itself. As one human being Natalie helps him become whole again, not that we are EVER ANYTHING but whole, but there was an incomplete memory trapping Zach. A memory in need of being experienced to its completion. Natalie acknowledges where he is (or isn’t-present) and cajoles him with the truth. He responds, awakens, recovering his presence. His face relaxes, becoming a mask of joy.
Though time is an illusion, being trapped in a creation can seem like an eternity.
The recovery time of our attention is sped by both the freedom to decide to recover, helping and being helped by another.
May each day, each hour be full of the quick recovery of all our attention.