A Little Auto-Interrogation

In Colorado it would be cold.  The wind would be blowing.  There might even be snow.

I’d have lit the oil lamp and tried to resurrect the summer of ’92 with a mug of chocolate and a book.  I’d have wedged into a corner because the light from the lamp wouldn’t come at the proper angle and my head would cast a big blackening shadow across the pages.

But this is Oklahoma.  And while the evening is cold for some its only chilly for me.

The light I’ve chosen reminds me of an oil lamp because it dies off fast at the fringes and makes me feel like I’m in a globe.  Like the blackness beyond the glow isn’t just hiding things, it’s negating them.  I find comfort in that feeling, but I find sadness in finding that comforting.

“Can you have a feeling about a feeling about a thing?”

Focus.  This word gets applied to situations, life, tasks, work, relationships, and light.  Each time I hear it used or conjure its use myself to condemn actions other than the actual bending of light through lenses I try to figure out how this word makes any sense.  No, really I do.

You have seven things to get done today.  Each feels as pressing as the next.  If you don’t focus on one at a time you’ll feel overwhelmed and never get any done.  You may not get all seven completed by focusing, but you’ll get more done than by not focusing.  Focusing light does not, at all, operate this way.  Focusing does not line up all the rays and neatly process them one at a time.  It does not eliminate extraneous rays.  It does not draw a laser beam of intensity on a single item.

Focusing light takes all the stuff you have now and moves it so that you can see it all clearly.  In some case it moves the stuff away in others closer.  You still have the same stuff, but it’s at arm’s length instead of in your face.

I wonder if there isn’t a useful, more literal, parallel to be derived from the focusing of light for application in the non-light scenarios.  Instead of making a list, prioritizing the items, and digging-in in order maybe there is some way to draw those needs in closer or to push them away and find clarity in that effort.  At a distance needing a gallon of milk may hold no meaning and you find you no longer require the milk.  Jammed up in your face the source of your sloth reveals its obvious grasp.

Day 310