This post is the third in a series on creativity and visual thinking. This time, voluntary attention is the issue. Most people in contemporary Western society do not pay very much attention to the here and now. Alan Watts wrote eloquently of this problem in The Book.

“As it is, we are merely bolting our lives - gulping down undigested experiences as fast as we can stuff them in - because awareness of our own existence is so superficial and so narrow that nothing seems to us more boring than simple being. If I ask you what you did, saw, heard, smelled, touched, and tasted yesterday, I am likely to get nothing more than the thin, sketchy outline of the few things that you noticed, and of those only what you thought worth remembering. Is it surprising that an existence so experienced seems so empty and bare that its hunger for an infinite future is insatiable?”

We do not have to live this way. We can learn to pay more attention to the here and now. Learning to pay attention need not be painful or boring, as it may have been when you were told as a child, “Pay attention!” Paying attention requires something more than simple exertion of will. Trying to pay attention because you think you should is less effective than paying attention because you want to. When you pay attention because you want to, you are not easily diverted. When you are forcing your attention on something, you will be easily diverted by something that interests you more. Immersed attention is natural absorption in developing an idea, contemplating an object or enjoying an experience. But be careful not to confuse immersed attention with passive attention. Passive attention is being easily absorbed, at random, in whatever comes along. Just as it’s not a simple matter of will, it’s not a simple matter of passivity, either.

What Paying Attention is Like

What is it like to pay attention, though? Does it mean being on 100% of the time, with no downtime? Not really. Paying attention has a tidal character of attending and withdrawing. Approximately every hour and a half, most people feel a need to stretch, yawn, take a break and perhaps disperse their attention. William James described dispersed attention like this: “Most of us probably fall several times a day into a fit somewhat like this: Their eyes are fixed on vacancy, the sounds of the world mix into confused unity…the foreground of consciousness is filled, if by anything, by a sort of solemn sense of surrender to the passing of time.” Dispersed attention is restful and natural. It is part of the natural rhythm of consciousness. Long periods of effectively immersed attention will still alternate with shorter periods of dispersed attention.

Voluntary Attention

A more intense and focused form of attention is voluntary attention. An individual who attends voluntarily is able to change the focus of her attention quickly, at will. To do this, her consciousness cannot be wholly immersed; she must be sufficiently self-aware to be able to decide. Ability to direct attention voluntarily is central to human freedom. Like relaxation and meditation, voluntary attention is a skill that can be learned. The first principle to learn is that you can fully attend only one thing, or related group of things, at a time. True, you can pre-attend (preconsciously attend) one thing (of a routine or habitual nature) and attend another at the same time. But if you try to attend two unrelated conversations at the same time, you will find that you can do so only by alternating your attention between the two. You will also find that your attention naturally favors the conversation that most interests you, which introduces a second principle of voluntary attention: find interest in what you are attending, or your attention will wander, become divided, or have to be forced.

Practicing Voluntary Attention

To develop your skill in voluntary attention, try these exercises.

For a brief period, pay attention to some visual object - for example, a chair or a tree. As you look at it, notice how it clarifies itself by dimming out the space and objects around it. Then turn to some other visual object and observe how this, in turn, begins to have a different background. Notice also that what was once a sharply focused figure merges into a relatively undifferentiated and unfocused background when attention is shifted. Perception naturally seeks one meaningful pattern at a time - in the terms of Gestalt psychology, one “figure-ground relationship”.

Again, allow an object in your immediate environment to become a figure against a ground. This time, however, also allow your feelings about the object to come into a clear figure-ground relationship. Become aware of whether you like or dislike the object. If your feelings are neutral, be aware that objects or ideas that “leave you cold” are not easy to attend. An object that disinterests you is far more difficult to attend than one that you like or dislike. Attention follows feelings of interest, positive or negative.

Visual Attentiveness is Not to Be Confused with Staring

Many people confuse staring with visual attentiveness. Asked to look at something, they stare at it. Staring, however, is not only inattentive, it is also bad vision. The fovea, a small patch of sharp focus in the retina of the eye, must scan the attended object freely in order to obtain a complete image. Thus, the third principle of voluntary attention is that attention is dynamic. Whenever mind and eye become immobile, attention diminishes and vision blurs.

Stare fixedly at any shape, trying to grasp precisely this shape by itself and nothing else. You will observe that soon it becomes unclear and you want to let your attention wander. On the other hand, if you let your gaze play around the shape, always returning to it in the varying backgrounds, the shape will be unified in these successive differentiations, will become clearer, and will be seen better.

Curiosity Goes Hand in Hand with Attention

Willian James wrote, “If we wish to keep our attention upon one and the same object, we must seek constantly to find out something new about it.” Thus the last principle of voluntary attention is that it is an act of continual discovery. Curiosity is involved in attention. Keep these tips in mind, and practice these exercises, and you can form a habit of focusing your voluntary attention at will. This will not only help you to be here now and thus to enjoy your life more fully. It will also help you become more creative.

Other Posts Categorized as Creativity:

• Internal Transfer from Right to Left Brain - September 12th, 2006
• Creativity on the Web and Relaxing the Eyes - July 29th, 2006