Losing Focus, Gaining Sight
When I was building web sites in the corporate world, I was in a meeting with technical, creative and business members, going over how a new architecture would impact how we do work. I was playing Solitaire on my computer, watching as PowerPoint slides slid by, keeping an ear out for interesting points, and asking questions when I felt something felt incomplete or incongruous. I remember one of my friends saying later how crazy it was that I was able to stay coherent in the meeting and ask good questions while I was playing Solitaire.
I hadn’t thought about an answer until more recently, when another friend of mine asked how her friends balance their attention between the digital and real worlds. How do we avoid being walking digital zombies and such?
The answer I came to was that I don’t usually keep a sharp focus on anything.
In 1996 I attended a self-actualization seminar that had a karate instructor teach us the idea of soft focus. He had us notice how, when we focus on something intently, it absorbs our entire attention. We’ve all had that experience of being so focussed on something we forget an appointment, we don’t hear someone calling our name, we bump our head on a low beam, and so on.
When we relax our gaze and pay less attention to any particular thing, our focus softens. Our sight and thoughts relax. And our peripheral vision widens. We become aware of our surroundings, what people are doing and saying, and so on.
This extends to our thoughts. When we focus on our thoughts, our focus sharpens, but it sharpens on something that has nothing to do with our external world. We pay close attention to scenarios, memories, possible futures, and so on. And we lose our ability to notice our surroundings and the people who inhabit them.
If we find ourselves ignoring the people we love, losing our belongings, losing track of time when it matters, it could be that we are spending more time thinking than observing.
When we are thinking, we are attempting to solve problems – even ones that don’t exist. We gnaw on worries, contemplate (and recontemplate) vacation plans, go down our to do lists we already listed, attempt to create positive solutions for painful past experiences, and so on. We might be providing color commentary on our current surroundings, judging people’s outfits, the traffic, the weather, and so on. Basically, we are identifying problems to be solved, even if we can’t solve them!
To be fair, the mind is also thinking when we meet good things, too. “Wow, that was a good experience! What a lovely day!” It is still doing the same process of assessment, but instead of finding a problem with it, it decides it does not need to solve this scenario. In these scenarios, we are more likely to observe.
When we are observing, the mind is actually pretty quiet. There isn’t much for the mind to do, other than take it all in. This may be unsettling for a mind used to running quickly on its treadmill, so it will continue to spin. My favorite experience with this was on a hike in Bryce Canyon, where the hiker behind me couldn’t stop saying how this was so lovely that it was indescribable. This didn’t stop her from attempting to describe how indescribable it was!
There are many ways to shift from thinking to observing on a general basis. Meditation is a common answer, which practices shifting us into observer mode. It can also help to consider thoughts as color commentary, but not the actual event. We can trust that our thoughts will work themselves out and let them keep running, just recognize that they don’t need your focus to run.
One book I found useful was The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. He does a great job of giving perspective on thoughts and finding that which is observing life – our awareness. He provides some great analogies, such as our thoughts coming from an annoying roommate who is on our couch watching the movie of life with us.
But the main key is recognizing that we can focus on our thoughts – or not – the same way we focus on our surroundings when we are walking, or we focus on a precise activity such as construction or dancing or sports. When we recognize that we can shift what we focus on, our thoughts have less of a hold on us. They just happen, and we can dip in to see what they are doing, but otherwise we can keep a soft focus on them.
By keeping that soft focus, we can see more, and allow our focus to shift more easily from subject to subject. Our peripheral vision widens to take it all in.