Fuck focus

Last week I sat down to do a “Five Senses” mental health activity. The activity asked me to “notice” things and then “allow [my]self to focus” on only one thing.

Here’s how that went for me:

I got annoyed at being told to sit in a particular position (“sit upright and relax” is an oxymoron, ma’am).

I got annoyed that there was no indication of how long the activity was supposed to take, or how long I should focus on each thing for.

I was immediately awash in decision fatigue over which one of many visual stimuli to focus on. I had the choice between nine different orchids (two of which were in bloom); a basket of miscellaneous writing and work notes (Ikea Risatorp in cream with list of Conophytum seeds acquired last autumn prominently displayed [burgeri, pellucidum, marginata karamoepense]); the white slightly textured surface of the table these things were sitting on; the fringed wall hanging to the left of the window; the near-field view out the window (warehouse converted into condos); the medium distance view (freeway [many cars going zoom]); the distant view (downtown [grey skies]).

I then walked around the apartment. I blew my nose. I stood by a different window and noticed how much green algae had grown on the sidewalk across the street. I decided to reheat lunch.

I remembered that it was time for my midday dose of amphetamine salts—and I actually took my midday dose of amphetamine salts (for ADHD folks, that second thing doesn’t necessarily follow the first).

I washed the airfryer basket and tray. I put leftover Korean dumplings into the airfryer to heat for eight minutes. I danced around for a minute to a hilarious song about being drunk and wanting pizza after the club. I added this song to my gym playlist. I started writing this list, and took so long writing it that the food was ready before I finished.

I ate lunch while looking for materials and capturing ideas for an art book project. I finished writing this list.

I decided to try the exercise another day.

Reader, I did not try the exercise another day.

Instead, in thinking through my response to this Five Senses exercise, I’ve decided that I am simply done with the concept of “focus.” 

Focus, it seems to me, is an achievement. It’s a state of near-enlightenment that, if you don’t come by it naturally, you must strive to attain. You must complete the correct rituals and beat your psyche into submission, whittling down your surroundings and boxing yourself in, until your surroundings, your posture, your affect, your output all conform to a normative standard of what focus looks like. Anything less is a failure.

(And what gets called “hyperfocus” for ADHDers is probably equivalent to a “flow state” for normies, except that we can’t call it a flow state because we’re not doing the “right thing” according to someone else’s standards.)

Attention, on the other hand, is a resource. We pay attention: it is a thing we have that we can spend. We can choose how to allocate it. This is true for regular people and for neurodivergent people, although it is different for the spicybrained.

What folks like me experience may be called attention deficit disorder, but the lived experience is more like: we have too much attention. We have a Scrooge McDuck swimming pool of attention—but we spend it in a rather indiscriminate fashion on too many things at once, and we often like to have lots of things to pay attention to in order to feel sufficiently stimulated and engaged. When it comes to attention, we make it rain. From the outside, this looks like distraction—that ynforgivable inability to focus—but in reality, we simply have a wealth that we splash around like trust fund babies.

So…

If attempting the asceticism of focus simply leads to failure—if not outright rebellion, like my reaction to the Five Senses exercise—over and over again, then it’s time to try something new. Fuck focus. I’m swimming in that abundant pool of attention instead.

I will tell you what that looks like for me next week.