Five Dispositions that Can Make Your Life More Productive and Happy
The philosophy of focusing on a slow and loving existence in the quiet now
Topic
Focus
A collection of 21 issues
Jigsaw Puzzles. Non-Stories. The Focused Life?
My father-in-law is 93 and really sharp. One thing he does to keep sharp: jigsaw puzzles. He times himself and works them serenely but with focus.
The mental exercise drips with lessons explored by Dr. Kevin Majerjes at Optimal Work: short bursts of sustained focus, little goals that
How to Use the Cold Weather
I woke up yesterday morning to the gales of November, the same that brought down the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975, according to meteorologists who said the atmospheric mix that dumped a few inches on my town is the same that brought down the mighty freighter.
I could hear a collective
The Life, Death—And Afterlife—of Literary Fiction
Will Blythe at Esquire
Why Universities Should Be More Like Monasteries
Molly Worthen at the New York Times
The Death of Literature?
If no one can focus long enough to read it, no one is going to pay for it. If no one pays for it, no one can write it. That, I believe, is the steady theme of this lovely literary essay that doesn't merely lament the state of
The Picture Book: Foe of the Left Hemisphere?
A Medieval Christmas
Dollar-for-word, this book is a terrible deal. It's 28 pages long and, except for a short appendix, every word is merely a paste job from the 2003 Revised Standard Edition (Catholic Edition) of the Bible.
And the book costs $44!
These publishers oughtta
Medieval Monasticism’s Timeless Lessons on Concentration
The modern world is steeped in distraction. Technological advancements in the age of information have provided an abundance of distractor stimuli and in parallel distorted the divisions between the offline and virtual world. The smartphone has facilitated cyberspace’s expansion into all realms we inhabit, diminishing boundaries and rendering us
Notes on Flow
"Flow" has been called an "optimal experience." It's a state of "effortless concentration so deep that [the persons in the flow] lose their sense of time, of themselves, of their problems." There are two forms of effort: "concentration on the task
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,