Eric Scheske

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Preliminary Notes Re: Focus

I will be exploring the difference between the left hemisphere's method of focus and the right hemisphere's. For now, I only note that a cottage industry has risen around focus, concentration, meditation, and the desire to rid ourselves of distractions. It's a good thing, but there's a difference between focus as praying and focus as preying.

Also: The right hemisphere "yields a broad, vigilant attention" and the left hemisphere "yields narrow, focused attention, mainly for the purpose of getting and feeding." McGilchrist, The Matter with Things, 27.

This review-essay starts with the premise that we think that distraction is a contemporary problem, but then explores how it has always been a problem.

If you're thinking distraction is only a contemporary thing, you haven't cracked the spine of The Philokalia, which was so focused on focus that it devised borderline (borderline only?) heretical methods and ideas to deal with it.

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Grab some nicotine and check out some art. Your right hemisphere needs the help.

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