Tag: focus

A Momentary Coffee

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Have you ever got to the end of your coffee and realised you want more. That the desire you had for coffee hasn’t been satiated and you’re not satisfied. As you delve deeper into the thoughts of the moment, that you can actually barely remember drinking the coffee at all. If that is the case there’s a good chance you were also doing something else while drinking the coffee. Perhaps working on your laptop. Maybe drinking your coffee on a long road trip. Or even grabbing a quick sip while doing some gardening. Busy to such an extent we didn’t give even a momentary awareness to the thing we desired, merely hoping to absorb it’s energy induced benefits.

It can’t just be the need to fill the caffeine addicted desire that makes us crave the cup, there must be something else involved like experiencing the taste and the sensations that consuming it provide. If you drink your coffee while completing whatever task you are fulfilling then this lack of focus and awareness of the act of enjoying and appreciating the coffee will be missed and arguably while it may be in your body, you may as well have not even drunk the coffee at all.

You forgot to enjoy the moment you very nearly created, this lack of presence denies existence itself. I’ll have another please.

We live in a world that moves at such speeds that we often don’t allow ourselves the necessary pleasure of just stopping and taking that five minutes to really observe the coffee and appreciate the satiating joy it can provide. So busy we don’t even have five minutes. But we always have five minutes, no one is truly that busy. We just didn’t notice that we wasted that five minutes robotically doing something else. Facebook perhaps.

In the past when I smoked I would have similar realisations. You crave a cigarette but you desire the whole experience not just the nicotine. I would sometimes roll one ‘for the walk’ but while there was a different satisfaction from that version, you still ended up fancying another upon arrival at the destination. There was something that hadn’t been entirely fulfilling about that version of the cigarette, just as there is something lacking from the coffee you forget you’re drinking.

We are so full of distractions. Perhaps we can use things like coffee or cigarettes, both together even, to use as markers to just take that five minutes to bring awareness to our surroundings, thoughts and the moment we’re experiencing. Just five minutes, just the length of time it takes to drink the coffee. There’s thousands of years of wisdom on being present, it can’t all be worthless now we have smart phones.

An Unknown Transition Into The Unknown

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I’m not someone who feels the need to play music all the time. I enjoy silence. I enjoy podcasts. I enjoy music. But a balance between them is vital, as is my mood on their regularity. I have been listening to some music for the last half hour while I was online and avoiding writing this. When I see people listening to music and being able to study, read or write, basically concentrate, I have often wished this was something I was capable of. The words coming on this page would be inspired by the sounds around me but I can’t focus and not even one word follows.

I was listening to some dub and desiring a party or a festival. These last few years have been an interesting transition in life. Everyone goes though different chapters in their lives, even if they marry at 18, never divorce, never leave their home town and keep the same job, there will still be chapters within this. Mine have been slightly more adventurous and I can recognise periods when I wanted nothing but travel and others when I felt a need to rest for example. It took about five years from my first desires for rest to get to were I am now but life is all so extreme that I’m still longing for adventure equally alongside some kind of ‘normal’ existence. ‘Normal’ is a strange and inexplicable concept, which is why I won’t even try explaining what I mean by it and I know my version of it will still be a long way from the man with many chapters in the same town above. But fuck, right now having listened to a little music and recollected a few memories, there is a part of me that wants to put down the ‘normal’ so much and pick up the alternate once more.

I have also come to appreciate this life though recently and value the people living it far more than I ever did at the height of being a prick in my more adventurous moments. I’ve come to realise there is as much value in this existence as one lived with daily excitement and variety, it’s different value but it’s still value regardless, as it too is exciting and varied regardless. That doesn’t stop me wanting to drop it all and jump on a boat heading somewhere wild and exotic though but I doubt that will ever leave me. Equally this current existence is an extreme in the other direction as I know the ideal will be somewhere in the middle. I only meant to come here for a few months to help a mate out and it’s been nearly six months. He’s taking great pleasure in reminding me a few more months and I’ll have broken my longest job record. With this pizza takeaway now being a thing and coronavirus being an even bigger thing it seems I may still be sitting in this same seat in four months trying to understand what the drink in my hand represents.

Is this now life? Well it’s the current version and I’m starting to learn enough from it that interesting things happen when we roll with whatever comes up. In a way that’s a freedom more real than any enforced search for a liberty that ultimately becomes constrictive. There are always things out of our control which make us jump between paths, enduring the grey transitional space between, but once we’re actually on it; life never really seems all that bad. Quite often the opposite. It has become clear to me recently that we’re owed nothing, their is no destiny, that desires will never happen if we wait for them to and ideas of fairness miss the harsh unknown nature of life. It is an irrational and absurd world. Nothing bad has happened but seemingly I’ve managed to understand the knowledge I previously had and it all seems to make a little more sense. This is why discipline is necessary. Why being able to focus the energy to achieve the goal is the only way we can really get things done. Why I’m curious, excited and unsure about what comes next. It’s a little unknown. But then everything always has been.

Stress

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I think I’m suffering from a little stress. I won’t say what but I’ve been working on a little project recently and it should have it’s first day on Friday. There’s stuff still to arrange and what I have so far I don’t think is good enough. Humour me because I’m clearly not giving away any information. Anyway today I have been in the most ridiculous mood. I nearly lost my shit in the bank because I was trying to set something up and despite this thing being through the bank the two women had never heard of it. I wasn’t rude to them because what’s the point and also I must admit I forgot some of the information I was supposed to bring, internally though I was smashing the place up. I let it all out once back in the car. Genuinely I was quite surprised at how pissed off I was. What is obvious is that I was just angry with myself for being stupid and not bringing the necessary paperwork but even then I was surprised at the level of anger I felt even when I was fully aware it was against myself.

I’ll be the first to admit that in the last ten plus years I’ve only had a handful of stressful situations. I never found travelling difficult because there was always a solution. It’s situations in which I would be on show and could mess up that would be the worst. Exams for example. This thing starting on Friday though is important but not especially. I’m not even sure what I’m stressing about really or why I’m getting myself in such a state if it’s not stress. I just don’t know how people manage to deal with stressful situations. You hear about ways people manage it but I don’t really know my way. Maybe thats the problem, I lack a way. I once thought meditation would be good but I never stuck at it. People drink or smoke but probably best if I avoid that route. Maybe I just need to get a boxing bag and sweat it out, that could work, it’ll have a duel function too.

The strange thing is I can’t really describe what it is I really mean by my reaction or whether it’s stress. I don’t really get flustered and usually I manage to do what I need to do relatively straightforwardly but I’ve been on an rampage mode today all the same. It also hasn’t allowed me to actually focus and carry out the necessary tasks I needed to do even though I feel in my mind if I just sat down and focused on them I could bash it out. As I say this I wonder then if it is a case of using the energy, learning to harness it. This out of control monster is simply the result of out of control energy. I have the energy and the desire for the project but the mind lacks focus, the mind is not in control. Perhaps then my way will involve me learning how to manage the wild energy, is that the way though or is that finding a way to find a way. Circles again. I just need to find a harness for that dragon. Easy.

An Unexpected Beating

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Well lads it finally happened, I went and got myself beaten up by a girl. Cheers of delight ring out across the skies from all the girls who have crossed my path and been wronged in the process. That would be silence obviously because it is zero girls. Back to the beating though, I got kicked in the head. Let’s try and create an image shall we. I’m tall, six foot three, and not big with muscle but I can hold my own. Not tonight though, for I’ve been doing some martial arts and attended my second kickboxing class. My New Years resolution involved jiu jitsu but events have evolved into kickboxing instead. I’m not a fighter, my instincts are to talk my way out of the trouble I’ve just talked myself into on the rare occasions it tries to find me. I don’t get the raw angry appreciation of hitting someone but when you see people fighting with talent and technique it feels like a majestic art form unfolding.

I did Krav Maga for eight months when I lived in Athens and I really enjoyed that too even though it was in Greek and I had to guess most of what was being said. You can’t spar in it though because there’s no gloves, it’s self defence and it’s designed to be rapid and brutal. Interestingly enough there are elements of kickboxing involved, I can see this in the technique already, but in kickboxing you spar and you actually need to learn how to defend yourself in a way you can’t in a Krav Maga beginners class. It gave me the taste required to search out more though.

This girl was good. It was the last practice of the session and the guy I had been training with had to leave so I went with her. She was small, reasonable skinny and an advert for not judging people by appearance. Interestingly enough when I kicked her she asked me to kick a little softer which is fair but it didn’t stop her coming in with some crazy combinations. In fairness to her though she never really tried to connect too much, misjudged that head kick though. And in truth she kicked though my pathetically positioned glove and hit me so it wasn’t too painful just a shock. She was all apologetic but I felt I needed to act tough, especially as I had to ask the coach for a sticky plaster in the first class because I cut my finger.

On a more serious note though martial arts are a very interesting form of practice, dare I say sport. As I said I’m not a fighter and I find most people who go to these things aren’t. What they do though is get you fitter, stronger and mentally train your mind in a way few other things do. You need to concentrate on what you are going to do while not letting your guard down, not letting your focus drop for a second. There has been a lot written about it but it creates a mental discipline and if you haven’t noticed by now that appears to be the long lost Holy Grail my life has suddenly started searching for. Maybe next time I’ll put aside my assumptions, learn to defend myself and accept that just this once it may not be an embarrassing thing to be beaten up by a girl.

Different Shades Of Grey

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It is interesting what methods people use to work or be creative. I remember I used to know someone who when studying preferred to be in busy noisy areas as it allowed her to concentrate; so the cafe section of the library over the quiet floor. I’ve often known people to play music while they study as it seems to help them focus and there are numerous studies backing this up. I have tried with classical music, which is usually the style of choice in these research, and found that of all types of sounds I could listen to it is probably the one that helps the most. It has something to do with the affect it has on your brain or something like that, the internet could probably inform me accurately but I am lazy to check. Certain music though I can’t study or write with and that is when I can hear words because I find them distracting as I follow along. In reality though I’m a silence man. I wonder what it is that leads one person to favour one way over another. I can only imagine it has something to do with upbringing and the environment you grew up studying in. My inability to study and use any possible excuse to be distracted probably led me to my silent necessities and I imagine someone who grew up in a noisy domestic environment but still studied around this probably searches this out.

That is the setting though but what about using certain things to assist us. I’ve met many a sophisticated wanker who loves the affect a glass of red wine has alongside a good book or while scribbling down words. He takes a sip out of his cup of red wine before continuing. Certainly though too much alcohol only hinders this process but I remember reading something a few years back that suggested the best combination was to have an alcoholic drink to relax the mind subsequently allowing it to be more creative and then a cup of coffee to give it the energy and focus required to implement the creativity. It’s not impossible to see some validity in this. I sometimes enjoy a little smoke and then attempt to write down some thoughts, but I could never study this way as the mind is all over the place. Equally if I am attempting to write something that I don’t want to be illegible nonsense despite appearing to be wisdom at the time then I really couldn’t smoke. I could though play the guitar as I just like to mess around on that and do it for the pleasure in the moment not with the intention of attempting to create anything for anyone else. I don’t though feel the desire to pick it up when sober so definitely smoking helps this.

It’s just interesting because everybody is so different and requires such different surroundings to achieve the same end result. We are also so varied in the way differing things affect us and how we manage to respond to them in regards alternate versions of output. Maybe I should have a smoke one day and try writing something on here, that could be an interesting addition, it may also be pretty obvious but also magically creative. It is just fascinating to see how different everyone is and depressing to see how we try and force everyone into boxes or group them all into either black or white. Education has a lot to do with this and it’s always very interesting to meet people who have been through alternative types of schooling because they have such different ways of resolving issues that arise. Time has many answers, hopefully we someday stumble upon the one which allows us to discover whichever shade of grey we are in between.

Born Again

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When people get into their thirties, like I am well into now, they discover new things and sometimes become mad and obsessed with them. In their twenties it doesn’t happen so much but thirties for sure I’ve seen people go crazy. The born again christians of whatever new hobby or life direction they take to fulfil that empty hole in their life. My lack of the focus and attention span required may just protect me from this. I’m currently reading a book on beekeeping and they’re incredible animals, from the nanny bees keeping the larvae at the perfect temperature, and I mean to one degree celsius, to the queen laying two thousand eggs a day to the language they use communicating about good sources of pollen like little stoners. They’re incredible and I want my own apiary, healthy nutritious raw honey, tasty alcoholic mead and the connection and bond with an actual hive of tens of thousand of bees. Will I become obsessed, well maybe we’ll see. It may just fall at the wayside like my plan to learn how to write code – I downloaded an app about a month ago – and making beer – I bought a brewing set about two months ago.

The problem with desiring doing too much is that we put so much effort into the excitement of the planning and dreaming that the actual doing becomes boring. The effort and hard work required to complete these fantasies doesn’t compare to how we have been imagining it in our excitable dreams. In the end we do nothing. Part of this then involves discipline and this seems to be the thing that has been lacking for me. Of course it suited me in my twenties having no discipline, who needs it when you’re just traveling around and having fun. This continued into my thirties but at thirty-four I think I may have to become a born again disciplinarian, or at least born again about the idea of it. If I ever have kids, poor little fuckers. This writing experiment is just that, an experiment but it is also an attempt at learning discipline and creating the habit required to not even notice the effort required to be disciplined. I have the physical discipline to write daily it appears, or at least do at the moment while my life is in one place and stable, but not always the discipline to write well or with effort. That will come, as much because it’ll be boring for myself to just dribble out inane nonsense. But what I am curious to see is whether this discipline can spread out and infect other parts of my life. The discipline to do yoga every morning, to do a little exercise, to eat well – these three things are starting to become necessary more each day as I start to feel the aches and pains of age. Maybe I’ll even make my beer and god forbid sit down long enough without procrastinating to find time to write an app.

Time is the master. While it may be infinite our moment within it certain isn’t. What has happened now in the past is done, it is over. It may have been great and full of experience but if we do not look forward we just become those grumpy old lonely travellers lost in their missed opportunities and repetitive stories. Today I drive to Cockermouth, the day after I probably come back, and the day after that, well thats anyones guess but I suspect it may be a good one.