How rarely do we look at how we are living on the level of detail of how we live words? It is suggested that each one begin to re-define words as a process of the purification of words which, when lived, these words become only of benefit and support in one’s life. In this way, we create a purified ‘living vocabulary’ where we literally become, in thought, word and deed, the words that we speak. Imagine the integrity, power and trust possible in such a way of living, within one’s self-relationship, and with others.
Today I will be looking at how I have lived and defined the word: FOCUS.
When I take a look at my life, I see that focus is something that came quite naturally to me when it comes to things that I am intrigued by or enjoy. However, what would happen is that I would become so completely absorbed into my area of focus that it would become an escape, and it would become difficult to pull myself away from.
I see this as happening around the time when childhood changes from simply living, expressing and playing, to school years, bullying, experiences with adults, new thoughts and ideas of self and others coming in to one’s consciousness, realizing the world is not such a nice place, and in fact there are things that are not at all enjoyable. Things that linger within self into ‘alone time’, where who self is at a fundamental level is changed. For me it felt like something big and bad that I would ignore and push down, where playing became escaping, focus became intentional blinding from everything outside of the scope of focus.
Conversely, when it comes to things that ‘must get done’, or things that I do not enjoy but have either decided to, or ‘have to’ do, my focus becomes divided, with one part of me looking to escape in every direction and the other part pulling at me to return to the task at hand.
In this way, focus for me in certain tasks and activities have become like a battlefield. I experience this on a physical level where when I push through the resistances and get to the work, I feel burdened, heavy and beat-up physically. This is due to years of schooling and working where I have felt forced and powerless in the work I am doing, where I did not find myself in the work, and I did not create a purpose for it in my life. I simply went with my programming of not wanting to do it, but forcing myself to do it anyways because some power above me made the decision, or it was a matter of survival. This battle is an internal one, but for me, the stress and pressure is felt very physically.
The common theme here is escape, where I am seeking to escape my internal experience towards something. My own reactions, ideas, perceptions and beliefs about the task at hand. Looking at the dictionary definition of the word, it is quite cool:
a center of activity, attraction, or attention
a point of concentration
directed attention
direction
adjustment for distinct vision
having or giving the proper sharpness of outline due to good focusing
Now that I have expanded on my understanding of the current definition of FOCUS, I will refine it to meet my specific circumstances, patterns and way of living.
Sounding the word: what do I hear when I speak the word focus? In determining this, when I speak the word aloud or within myself after having re-defined it, it will give me flag posts or reminders of my new meaning of the word – within this, the word itself contains the solution I script for myself.
Focus:
I hear ‘fuck us’, as in a big ol’ hardy ‘fuck you!’ to distractions and diversions on my path to what I am trying to attain. When I focus, I am focusing on ONE thing at a time, but feel surrounded by multitudinous forces pulling me away in every direction, and really, I need to tell them (as me as what I am creating within myself) to simply fuck off. It may seem a little brash, but the simplicity is genius, because there is no need to overcomplicate, analyze, justify, validate, investigate or look into in any depth those things that are distracting me from my goal, the project at hand, and the object of my focus. To do so would be to feed the distraction and escape even more by spending EVEN MORE time on looking at it and thinking about it. It quite simply needs to fuck off.
It as if the distractions as self-created entities have an awareness and are supporting me by me speaking AS them, telling myself to ‘fuck off’ with the trivial thoughts, tempting distractions, ‘liberating’ escape that only leads to stress and anxiety as I put things off, take too long or procrastinate).
For my re-definition, I am bringing in a complimentary word that I had previously re-defined, which is POWER (you can read the blog here)
FOCUS – New Definition:
To stop fucking off, saying ‘fuck you’ to the distractions/’fuck us’ AS the distractions I create within and as myself as I use my POWER to center my activity, define my point of concentration and direct my attention to the task at hand.