Today I’m concentrating on concentrating; a challenge for me. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) came into being when I first started teaching in the early 1970s, and was a full-fledged phenomenon when I retired in 1996. I was never attentive to it, and now I know why. I was ADHD myself, but since I seemed to know how to maneuver around it without much harm to myself of others, I was NEVER aware of it. I understood, however, the kids who were in perpetual physical and mental motion. (Right now as I write I keep stopping to gaze about, sip my cappucchino, and think about what I will do when I leave this café.) I was also in awe of the students who stuck to a task for long periods of time. And so, with this new insight, accompanied by intense effort, I am trying to stick to the task of writing this paragraph without distraction. It is a challenge.
Living in Florence for these two weeks offers the perfect opportunity for me to practice concentrating. Concentrating on what? After all I do concentrate. The problem is that I concentrate on many, many, many things, all within a very, very, very short time span. However, concentrating on one task for an extended period of time, until I complete it, is very difficult--be it writing, walking the streets, visiting museums. I want to be in the Now, to use Eckart Tolle’s term. I am reminded of his comment that he spent two years sitting on a park bench just being present to what was going on around him. Really!!
Hmm, I am amazed at all I accomplish, and I wonder what my life would be like if I concentrated more consistently on one thing at a time. Just think of all what I could achieve! But maybe I’d lose my enthusiasm, my uniqueness, whatever that is. I believe, however, that I would gain something of worth. What? More time, time to write, read, pray, walk, sit in the mystery. More presence, presence with myself, friends, God.
In Florence I am aware of local artists who must be concentrating to produce their work. Maybe the have ADHD, maybe they have unwavering concentration, like native-son Michelangelo.Regardless of where any of us find ourselves on the concentration continuum, we do our best to make meaning. That’s what the NOW is about.
Living in Florence for these two weeks offers the perfect opportunity for me to practice concentrating. Concentrating on what? After all I do concentrate. The problem is that I concentrate on many, many, many things, all within a very, very, very short time span. However, concentrating on one task for an extended period of time, until I complete it, is very difficult--be it writing, walking the streets, visiting museums. I want to be in the Now, to use Eckart Tolle’s term. I am reminded of his comment that he spent two years sitting on a park bench just being present to what was going on around him. Really!!
Hmm, I am amazed at all I accomplish, and I wonder what my life would be like if I concentrated more consistently on one thing at a time. Just think of all what I could achieve! But maybe I’d lose my enthusiasm, my uniqueness, whatever that is. I believe, however, that I would gain something of worth. What? More time, time to write, read, pray, walk, sit in the mystery. More presence, presence with myself, friends, God.
In Florence I am aware of local artists who must be concentrating to produce their work. Maybe the have ADHD, maybe they have unwavering concentration, like native-son Michelangelo.Regardless of where any of us find ourselves on the concentration continuum, we do our best to make meaning. That’s what the NOW is about.