Two contradictory states of mind...

...That is modern life.

I find at the moment my days move between two modes of thought. On the one hand, I very much believe in mindfulness. It's something i've got into over the last few years, beginning when my friends dad lent me 'The Miracle of Mindfulness' as an in roads to Buddhism. Mindfulness is the attaining of the ability to sort of at once be clear minded but also directly focused; it is the cultivation of this ability. Also, inherently moulding a mindset that says "Wow! We are here! What are the chances?" and really basking in the joy of this. To quote some wise man - "The miracle isnt to walk on water; the miracle isnt to fly; The miracle is to purely walk on Earth".

At the same time, I find myself very given over to the '21st century scizophrenic' mindset that Jameson outlayed. That today with all the signs, all the morsels of information that line our streets & days, we have become almost scizophrenic in our thought process - we absentmindedly jump from one ship to another in mind, thoughts of 'whats for lunch' one second, then suddenly, without concious reason, thoughts of a dead pet, or murmers of an ex girlfriend spring the next. We are sort of rolled from the beginning of days to the end picking up signs and churning them in such way. It's a rather disparaging way to think, atleast, when levied alongside the clear virtues of 'mindfulness'; However I find for the creative thinker its a rather attainful way to think. I find thinking like this, ideas spring up out of nowhere, tangents are thought-up and felt-out; a brisk walk back home from the shops may be the kiln for a feverous new idea, built on nothing more than seeing a car drive by or a bird fly low.

It's a mindset that Virginia Woolf personified in To The Lighthouse, perhaps only now (almost 100 years later) we have cranked it all the way to 11 in our 21st century ways. An absolute overdrive of information as you walk the streets, or look around your room (much different from the simple Victorian fixings she would have surrounded herself with). Standing still, how many labels can you read? How many ideas are in ear-shot?

So this is my contradiction of thought-process. On the one hand I am very fond of attaining that fruitful insight that mindfulness brings, but on the other, I like to be the pebble dropped in the river, washed this way & that from wave to wave. I find myself cushioning up in either way, from one day to the next. For animating, I find the mindful thought-process the best; being all over the place (mentally) absorbs you in elsewhere ideas when trying to animate & before long you find yourself hunched over Facebook or the kettle, procrastinating.