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This post could have been entitled: Focus. This is because focus and distraction are derivatives of the same wandering self.

Our confusion sees distraction as the bad thing and focus as the good thing, but these are both states of being…lost. Distraction is the involuntary shift of consciousness away from an object, while focus is defined by the voluntarily shift of consciousness toward an object. Our illusion understands distraction as loss of control and focus as being in control. However, as inhalation and exhalation are both essential to breathing, likewise, focus and distraction comprise the involuntary wavelength of our awareness.

We can no more remain focused than we can remain inhaling.

Our dogs reflect to us the strength of our creaturely existence. We too are distracted by impulses to chase food, sex, or comfort. Our brains wire themselves chemically in conformity to these impulses, creating addictive neuro pathways which excuse us from taking responsibility for having the wrong focus.

Addiction is not distraction, it’s focus. Who focuses more than addicts? This reveals the focus feedback loop.

Our confusion celebrates focus when it’s on things which give us money, status, or power. We call this success but it’s only an elaborate version of the addict’s fix. We forsake reality and authenticity in trade for rising higher than our neighbor.

The successful life of our pseudonym comes from misdirected focus, which means it’s actually a dire distraction.

Most people recognize our need to be liberated from distraction. We also intuit that our focus must land upon higher and higher things, or else we cannot escape our creatureliness and realize the potential of our humanity. What is the highest focus for life? Until we ask this question, we live under anesthesia, distracted, oblivious, and addicted.

If focus means we missed life’s main purpose, what value is focus? Isn’t it really just a prolonged distraction?

Religion, science, philosophy and psychology have offered answers to life’s existential questions of meaning and purpose. Each rabbit has its own hole which draws our focus and exploration. Each quest leads to the question of God, or Origin and humanity’s relationship therewith. This is our highest, irreducible, single focus, yet ironically, those who try this pursuit, usually end up distracted, not focused.

Our curiosity asks questions. Dominant systems answer them with certainty. Certainty is the involuntary opiate of distraction. However, beyond our words, beyond descriptions, beyond doctrines, beyond containers lies this infinite thick darkness where focus graces us with metaphorical night vision goggles…

Focus is un-knowing…

It’s deconstruction…

Where distraction falls away… and desire to know merges with the desire to be known.

It’s where subject and object converge in an imperfect, muddled, endearing dance of experiential discovery.

Where distraction finally ends… and mental focus is displaced by the flow of existence.

All within the context of living, moving, and being.

We see that darkness is not “nothing.”

“…we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” -Paul