{"id":14438,"date":"2013-08-09T13:21:11","date_gmt":"2013-08-09T17:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=14438"},"modified":"2013-08-09T13:21:11","modified_gmt":"2013-08-09T17:21:11","slug":"lacking-focus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/lacking-focus\/","title":{"rendered":"Lacking Focus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cover<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: cover from the catalogue of the “Focus on Imaging” exhibit of 2010. Photo by artist Nick Veasey<\/a>, who specializes in X-ray photography; found it on Flickr<\/a>, uploaded by user Karen Roe. The image seems straightforward at first, but the more you look at it the less plausible it seems. For more information, see the note at the foot of this post.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From\u00a0whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

People don’t do what we want, things don’t happen quickly enough, the weather doesn’t cooperate, our bodies don’t cooperate. Why are these moments so painful? Because our minds are focused on a static, unchanging, me-centric picture while the dynamic unfolding of a broader life continues around us. There is nothing wrong with expectations per se, as it’s appropriate to set goals and work, properly, towards their fruition. But the instant we feel pain over life not going “my way,” our expectations have clearly taken an improper turn. Any moment you feel resistance or pain, look for the hidden expectation. Practice giving yourself over to what “you” don’t want. Let the line at the store be long. Let the other person interrupt you. Let the nervousness make you shake. Be where your body is, not where your mind is trying to take you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Guy Finley [quoted everywhere, but unsourced anywhere that I can find!<\/em>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

To the Happy Few<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do you know who you are<\/p>\n

O you forever listed
\nunder some other heading
\nwhen you are listed at all<\/p>\n

You whose addresses
\nwhen you have them
\nare never sold except
\nfor another reason
\nsomething else that is
\nsupposed to identify you<\/p>\n

who carry no card
\nstating that you are—
\nwhat would it say you were
\nto someone turning it over
\nlooking perhaps for
\na date or for
\nanything to go by<\/p>\n

you with no secret handshake
\nno proof of membership
\nno way to prove such a thing
\neven to yourselves<\/p>\n

you without a word
\nof explanation
\nand only yourselves
\nas evidence<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(W. S. Merwin [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from\u00a0whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

ROYGBIV<\/strong><\/p>\n

The shoemaker’s wife ran preschool
\nWith a fist made not so much of iron
\nBut wire bristles on a wooden brush.<\/p>\n

She made us recite and learn by rote.
\nOur trick was to mouth words, sound
\nAs if we knew what we would one day<\/p>\n

Come to know, what would dawn
\nOn us as sure as a centipede knows
\nWhat to do with its myriad legs.<\/p>\n

She made us settle our feet on the mud
\nFloor of her daub and wattle hut and she
\nWielded a cane cut from wood that bit<\/p>\n

Into the palm of the hand and left a burn
\nThat resonated up the arm for an age
\nAfter its smart swing and crisp contact.<\/p>\n

Worst of all was the shoe cupboard
\nWhere the old man stored his wire
\nBrushes: a cold, dark, narrow place,<\/p>\n

Replete with brushes hung on nails
\nCovering every square inch and said
\nTo come alive when a child was locked<\/p>\n

In with them so that they scrubbed
\nFlesh off that child\u2019s bones. She said
\nWe would end up there if we did not<\/p>\n

Concentrate, so we stilled our feet
\nAnd spoke the words in the right order
\nFor colors in a rainbow until the very<\/p>\n

Thing took her place in front of us
\nArranged in cuneiform, polished,
\nBrandishing a window to climb out.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Fred D’Aguiar [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

The world of the Dagara<\/a> [people of west Africa] doesn’t distinguish between reality and imagination. To us, there is a close connection between thought and reality.\u00a0To imagine something, to closely focus one’s thoughts upon it, has the potential to bring that “something” into being. Thus, people who take a tragic view of life and are always expecting the worst, usually manifest that reality. Those who expect that things will work together for the good, usually experience just that. In the realm of the sacred, this concept is taken even further, for what is magic but the ability to focus thought and energy to get results on the human plane.\u00a0The Dagara view of reality is large: If one can imagine something, then it has at least the potential to exist.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Malidoma Som\u00e9 [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Letter of Recommendation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Miss A, who graduated six years back,
\nhas air-expressed me an imposing stack
\nof forms in furtherance of her heart’s desire:
\na Ph.D. Not wishing to deny her,
\nI dredge around for something laudatory
\nto say that won’t be simply a tall story;
\nin fact, I search for memories of her,
\nand draw a blank — or say, at best a blur.
\nWas hers the class in that ungodly room
\nwhose creaking door slammed with a sonic boom,
\nwhose radiators twangled for the first
\nten minutes, and then hissed, and (this was worst)
\nsubsided with a long, regretful sigh?
\nYes, there, as every Wednesday we would try
\nto overlook cacophony and bring
\nour wits to bear on some distinguished thing
\nsome poet sometime wrote, Miss A would sit
\ncalm in a middle row and ponder it.
\nBlonde, I believe, and quiet (so many are).
\nA dutiful note-taker. Not a star.
\nRoundheads and Cavaliers received their due
\nnotice from her before the term was through.
\nShe wrote a paper on… could it have been
\n“Milton’s Idea of Original Sin”?
\nOr was it “Deathbed Imagery in Donne”?
\nWhichever, it was likely not much fun
\nfor her. It wasn’t bad, though I’ve seen better.
\nBut I can hardly say that in a letter
\nlike this one, now refusing to take shape
\neven as wispy memories escape
\nthe reach of certitude. Try as I may,
\nI cannot render palpable Miss A,
\nwho, with five hundred classmates, left few traces
\nwhen she decamped. Those mortarboard-crowned faces,
\nmultitudes, beaming, ardent to improve
\na world advancing dumbly in its groove,
\ncrossing the stage that day — to be consigned
\nto a cold-storage portion of the mind…
\nWhat could be sadder? (She remembered me<\/em>.)
\nThe transcript says I gave Miss A a B.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Robert B. Shaw [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

When you stepped up from the sidewalk onto the porch, your shoes thudding hollowly on the boards, when you reached for the worn metal handle of the screen door, when you stepped into the [barbershop’s] interior — forever fragrant with Vitalis and Pinaud Clubman, Barbicide and Old Spice — and the door swung shut behind you, you half-expected to find a spittoon on the floor and not a barber, but a cynical saloonkeeper.<\/p>\n

Instead, you’d find just Walter: one-eyed, wispy-framed Walter.<\/p>\n

He’d lost the left eye when still a boy, so said the whisperers, in an unlucky encounter with a pair of scissors. Fact was, no one really knew how it had happened. No one remembered ever seeing Walter without a pair of eyeglasses, black electrician’s tape over the left lens. A few people had glimpsed the zipper of a scar behind that lens, but they never spoke of it. When you talked to Walter Evans, you learned to look him in the right eye, or to look nowhere at all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(JES,\u00a0Seems to Fit<\/em>)<\/p>\n

______________________<\/p>\n

About the photo:<\/strong> So how did<\/em> the photographer shoot this? Here’s a “making-of” video, from Nick Veasey\u00a0himself:<\/p>\n