Tag: Focus

A stream-of-consciousness prayer

General

Getting started is almost always the hardest part. I am certain I’ve said that on this blog before. I’ve said it before because it’s true, at least for me and the way my brain works. Once I get going in earnest on a task, distractions fade away. Honestly I only get distracted when I don’t have an interesting or urgent project I am working on. My attention span is all or nothing, it seems.

If I am distracted, in a distractable state, I bounce between sources of that sweet sweet dopamine; music, games, social media, around and around I go. If there’s something I should be working on that does not immediately fit into the categories of interesting or urgent, and I’m able to muster a shred of duty, engaging my executive function feels like I am dragging a recalcitrant dog on a leash toward home.

Right now, as I write this, I’m having to pull that pup hard. On one screen I have this app into which I am tapping out words. On the left screen I have a video going, just to have another human voice as background. The video is of Jawoodle, a YouTuber, playing my current obsession, 7 Days to Die, the zombie horror survival multiplayer online crafting game. Did I squeeze in anough descriptors to that?

I really enjoy that game. Jawoodle is Australian and his boisterous and friendly voice is fun to listen to. And I don’t need to pay close attention. He can ramble as he wanders the wasteland and if something amazing happens I can turn away from my writing, and rewind to watch.

Something amazing might be a close call with zombies, some choice piece of loot, or an interesting new place to raid. I need to write but my eyes and attention wander over to the left to stop and watch the moving pictures. Come on, pup, we need to get back to the task at hand. I know you don’t want to, but we have to. As much as I’d love to let you have a free run, I have a streak to keep going. Gotta keep writing.

Nope, lost focus briefly. Jawoodle found a bunch of legendary parts in a clothing store; I zoned out to his count and joy. This dog (my brain) wants to hunt (do nothing at all). I am burning all my attention fuel trying to keep writing this post. I think I was going somewhere with all this but the light at the end of the tunnel is fading. I’m writing but I feel lost in the darkness. My feet feel the train tracks but my eyes are useless in this pitch black.

The ending is coming up soon. Is my stream of consciousness writing lately at all of interest? As I’ve said before, I’m just putting in the time, building the habit, so that when inspiration and the muse find me again, I am ready to receive the blessings. My writing these days is more like a prayer. A hope for a better day when I am able to turn my interior feelings into words that can transmit those feelings to another person. That’s you, the reader. Hope you stay tuned.

Focus Training Day

General

I did it. I spent the entire morning completely unplugged. I woke up around 7:30 AM, turned off my phone, turned off my computers, made some breakfast, wrote in my journal, and then read through two full, honest-to-Sagan, paper books.

No computer screens. No teevee showing a binge of YouTube or Netflix. No taking breaks every few minutes to see what was trending on Facebook or  Twitter. I didn’t even really know what time it was, exactly; the only clock I have that isn’t also a computer is on the microwave in the kitchen, and I only went in there to get more coffee.

I woke up and wrote a page in my journal, longhand, just organizing my thoughts. I haven’t written in my journal since October last year.

I’ve felt distracted and despairing that I would ever be able to read a book in a reasonable amount of time ever again. Every time I’ve tried, recently, I get nervous and distracted and eventually give up, even on “easy” reads. Even on short books.

I’ve had Charles Bukowski On Cats on loan from the library since August last year. I’ve renewed the damned thing over and over again. It’s barely 120 pages, and it’s poems and short-short stories and vignettes and drawings. And still, I haven’t been able to finish it. This morning, I read through it while making breakfast (scrambled eggs, bacon, garlic hashbrowns, English muffin, coffee), and then while I was eating breakfast and then finishing it.

I finished it. And it was still early. I had planned to stay offline until noon, if I could manage it. I sat in my office and looked out the window and felt the pull to turn on my computer, if only to update Goodreads, tell the world I’d finished this book.

Instead, I got up, put the sheets in the laundry, and pulled down another book on my “to be read” pile: Hunter Stockton Thompson’s Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. Sat down on the couch and started reading. Got to about page 40, flipped ahead to see that the whole thing was only 200 pages, realized I could put a serious dent in this before my self-imposed screen jail time had elapsed.

When I reached the end of Part One, almost exactly halfway through, I got up, stretched, pulled the sheets out of the dryer and put them on the bed, and noted the time: 10:30 AM. I could finish this book in one sitting. Like I’d done in the distant past. I actually had the focus, the drive, the attention span to read a whole novel in a few hours.

I can’t tell you what a revelation and what a relief this is to me. Once I got into HST’s prose, I stopped worrying what was trending on Twitter. I no longer cared what arguments were happening on Facebook. I did, briefly, wonder if my friends or family were trying to reach me, but I allowed myself to feel that anxiety, then kept reading. I’d be available all too soon. I can catch up. The world can wait for just a bit longer.

And I have returned. I feel calmer and less stressed. Reading is meditative. Having the words of someone else in my brain lets me soothe the fears of my own inner voice. I’m recharged, and ready to return to the global consciousness.

Take a break from the Internet from time to time. It helps.