11. Focusing on Focusing -- It's All in the Details

 

Here's a little-easy one:

Focusing on focusing.

Everybody focuses -- well or poorly, whether visually, through the other senses, or intuitively (bypassing the external senses).

Few focus on focusing, itself -- unless they're having trouble focusing, in which the usual strategy is to try harder to focus -- which leads to eyestrain.  Doesn't work, so well, does it?

So, I'll bring focusing into focus.

Focus is the ability to sense more details.  That's what happens when we bring things into focus.  That's what an optometrist is looking for with the correct lenses:  that ability to see more detail -- smaller letters on the eyechart.

Focus narrows the field of attention so that more attention is available for objects (or subjects) that appear small (the result of size -- or distance).  The result is what's called, "higher resolution" -- sharpness.  Details, visible.

Focus is different from freedom from distraction (which is what many experts mean, by "focus").  The term for non-distraction is the cousin of focus, coherence.

When a person is incoherent, they bring in extraneous matters in a disjointed way.  They have scattered attention and induce scattering of attention in their listeners.

Feel it?

Focus is different from the idea of focus.  The idea of focus, in itself, is unfocussed!  It's vague -- and it can be wrong, as when we conflate focus with coherence.

Focus is what's needed to distinguish an object of attention from its background and objects in the foreground, its context or setting -- involving reducing the field of attention to the object of interest by making everything but the object of attention, blurry.

Focus requires coherence and coherence requires focus.  Attention has to remain long enough on an object for it to come into focus; attention has to focus long enough on an object for attention to steady, upon it (coherence).  Those are good reasons to cultivate both focus and coherence, equally.

How to do that?  Balance your core faculties of intelligence -- attention, intention, memory and imagination.

A word, for the wise, is sufficient.

That's all, for today.

Next expostulation in a couple of days, or so.