Consciousness as our Canvas
In Psychology, consciousness is defined as the individual awareness of our unique thoughts, memories, feelings, sensations, and environment. Our conscious experiences are continually shifting and changing.
For example, I could be intensely focused on my writing and then as my cat jumps onto my laps, my focus switches over to her. Then I remember that I’ve forgotten to feed her. As I get up, I realize that my back hurts due to the uncomfortable chair I’m sitting on. While walking towards the kitchen, my mind switches to a presentation I’ve got on Saturday. Now, all of a sudden, I feel nervous and terrified.
However, let’s also look at consciousness in a more empowering way which helps us design our life, rather than just a receptacle for random streams of consciousness.
Imagine that the consciousness we are born with as a blank canvas, though this is not entirely true, and our experiences as the paint that ends up on the canvas.
What we paint on the canvas is derived from our interactions with our environment—the people we meet, the places we inhabit and the things we do. But most importantly it is not the interactions per se but rather how we perceive these interactions that are recorded onto the canvas. It is these observations that leave an imprint on the canvas and shapes our future decisions and behavior which then ultimately becomes our way of being—our final painting.
However, only when we delve deep into our psyche and understand more clearly the perception of the interactions, can we then erase, change and supplant what that painting would look like. The more intentional we are about aligning our life to who we truly are—focusing on the right environments and right interactions—the more authentic our experiences become.
On the other hand, when we do nothing and just paint the canvas with whatever we perceive and simply allow life to happen on to us, the final painting does not represent our authentic selves. This fake painting adds nothing to society as it lacks the fascinating details and nuances that only occur when we question what we perceive and put on the canvas.
The best art paintings have been altered, adjusted and worked on with extreme detail, intense focus and the artist’s will to portray the finished article exactly as he perceived it in his mind. Likewise, our canvas of life needs to be worked on in the same fashion.
Thomas Merton after a lifetime of spiritual practice said, “Every man has a vocation to be someone: but he must understand clearly that in order to fulfill this vocation he can only be one person: himself.”
The consciousness canvas becomes the total sum of experiences that we have acquired—The “Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat,” that we’ve put into our lives.
The life painting that never ends until we die has now started to resemble who we were meant to be.
In allowing our unique self to be clearly visible on the canvas, we’ve created a work of art that humanity will quickly realise to be a masterpiece.