Focus

Since my two month hiatus from my novel it has become necessary for me to reread everything I’ve written so far in order to get reacquainted with the story and characters. At the sacrifice of trees, I decided to read it in hard copy format. So I printed it out last week, stuck it in an expansion folder (a remnant of my old job) and put it on my coffee table. And there it sat and sat for over a week.

Since I was getting no where at home I decided a change of venue was in order. So tonight I went to a coffee shop with nothing but my book, one of Kurt Vonnegut’s books and a journal. No laptop. I was going old school.

Fortunately, a friend had turned me on to a new 24 hour coffee shop, an all but extinct establishment in Austin. Most of my old haunts back in college have closed, changed ownership, changed their hours, or expanded into restaurants and bars.

As I bounced pretty regularly from book to Vonnegut to journal, I realized two things:

1. My brain is fucked!

2. I’m glad I don’t have aspirations to return to school because I don’t think I could handle it.

I don’t know how kids today do it. Well, that’s not entirely true. I’m sure there’s a lot of prescription speed going around. Anyhow, my mind was incapable of focusing on anything for more than 15 minutes.

In fact, I’m willing to bet you, yeah you reading this -wake up- are losing interest. Of course, this might not be entirely due to lack of focus. I might be partially or entirely to blame. Regardless, I better wrap it up before the 50 other things you’ve thought about while reading this absorbs your mind and your next 10-15 minute block of attention.

About a year ago I read a great book by Nicolas Carr entitled, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. I recommend you read it. That is if you can muster your attention span long enough to click over to your favorite online book provider and purchase it before your mind jumps to the 100 other things bouncing around in your brain.