If I am to list my faults as a biological human being - that shell of foam made of protein currently used to carry my consciousness - it is its inability to stay focused for any length of time.
External deadlines ("this piece is needed for 15:00 today" or "you're on TV in half an hour and expected to cover a subject you hardly know") are great for focusing the mind. If I fail to perform, I have to apologise, explain myself etc. Uncomfortable. In such cases, I carry out the task, and the fact that I get asked back repeatedly suggests that I'm not bad at it.
But when there's no external deadline - just me telling myself what I need to get done?
Like writing this blog post. You'll see it date-stamped one minute to midnight, Wednesday 30 August - the day I originally had the intuition to write this post. I made notes, I started, but I didn't get round to finishing it. The piece was finally completed on Friday morning - because of procrastination and a mind that wanders off onto other trains of thought.
Procrastination is a feature (or rather a bug!) of our human behaviour that we're all aware of. It leads to a growing list of things to do that have been put off because they're neither Urgent nor Important within our subconscious Eisenhower Matrix. Down there in the bottom right are things like Buying the Battery for the Other Motorbike (which I'll do when I Get Round To It). Or sweeping the floor in the porch. Or getting someone to put up the big mirror. If the list of things-put-off gets too long and unmanageable, it generates unhappiness, frustration and stress, all of which contribute to ill-health.
Having reached the stage of life where I know what is indeed important, and getting older means there's less time to accomplish it, I really need focus. Spiritual focus indeed - the sort learnt by Buddhist monks in their mystical contemplations. A mind that doesn't wonder. Mine's off. I have to confess I'm thinking about breakfast right now... should I eat first, and then finish this blog post?
No - I'll keep writing. One can live for days without food. Focus on the task!
Sitting cross-legged for hours at a time in silent contemplation of the numinous, the infinite, the eternal is a valuable practice when young - when the Zen master prowls the room of seated novice monks with a stick, ready to swipe the backs of those whose minds have clearly wandered off.
As we learn more about our psychiatric behavioural disorders, we grasp the idea that there are many of them, and most of us are touched by one or more to a lesser or greater degree. I have written about autism spectrum disorder (ASD, formerly known as Asperger's Syndrome), but another that affects a significant slice of the population is ADHD - attention deficit hyperactivity disorder "characterised by excessive amounts of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity" [Wikipedia]. Again, it's a spectrum thing. Define 'excessive amounts.' Even small amounts can be pernicious. What counts as 'excessive'?
My phone vibrates. My focus is gone - I reach for the phone. Nothing urgent - the weather forecast has been updated. Sunny today, rain for the weekend. PUT IT DOWN AND FOCUS!
We are all prone to such moments of distraction. Attention is an evolutionarily important trait - I see a cat sitting motionless in a field, among the tall grass. Its attention is focused on the stirrings of a field mouse. The cat is oblivious to me approaching it from the rear... I get closer - suddenly, it becomes aware of me; it has to make a decision whether to run from the human or to stay focused on the mouse. I take a step closer - the cat bounds off. The mouse is spared by this unexpected intervention.
Attention deficit can coexist with ASD. Being 'on spectrum' usually means having those restricted, repetitive behaviours and interests (RRBI), those intense, fixated interests in specific activities or subjects. RRBI helps with focus. I have written about how the great geniuses of science were often on the autism spectrum ('savants') - something that Stanford School of Medicine's Prof Garry Nolan attributes to differences within the putamen caudate area of the brain's basal ganglia when compared to the neurotypical.
I have written in the past about specialist and generalists - having a deep knowledge or broad knowledge. Maybe it's too simplistic, but I would associate deep knowledge within a narrow area of interest with RRBI (and ASD) and broad general knowledge with the scattiness and ADHD - losing focus on one subject area when another, more interesting one, comes along.
When I was young, I could toggle between both modes; on the one hand being engrossed for hours in deeply focused play (building cities out of Lego), or reading about aeroplanes and comparing their maximum speeds. On the other hand, I could become distracted all too easily and switch from one activity to another. My father would often tell me 'nie łap za dużo srok za ogon' - don't try to catch too many magpies by the tail. He could see that I'd have trouble staying focused on one thing, and that would be his way of telling me.
Both these traits continued into adulthood. I'd give this dichotomy a positive spin - I was good at multitasking, I'd tell myself. Now, I think that more focus is good. Focus on attention. Plan my day. Write a to-do list at the start of each day. Structure. Get more done. Beat procrastination. Life is getting shorter by the day, however old you are - there are things that need to be achieved.
Now I press the 'publish' button, I can make myself breakfast.
This time last year:
The S7 extension opens (and Jeziorki loses its semi-rural tranquility forever).
This time three years ago:
Infrastructure delays everywhere
Let's stop spitting at the other tribe
Progress on the działka
This time nine years ago:
Changes to Poland's traffic regulations
This time 12 years ago:
Teasers in the Polish-English linguistic space
This time 13 years ago:
Summer slipping away
This time 14 years ago:
To the airport by bike
This time 15 years ago:
My translation of Tuwim's Lokomotywa
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