ReFocus

(Date is approximate)

I'm realizing something that is so important that I interrupted my dinner of Butternut Squash to write it down. Focus. Focus is important. It is what allows us to realize what we're doing, to learn more about it, to do it right, to learn from it correctly. Focus, redundantly, FOCUSES our resources on whatever we choose. We have the capacity to CHOOSE what to focus on, but we so rarely do. I mean "we" as the collective of modern society. Constant activity, worries about the future, regrets of the past, clutter our mind, steal our time, and the mind is allowed to ramble whenever our confused, biased, and most often scared concepts carry it. "Our mind is the focusing lens". A diffuse, unsteady lens will achieve little. A small magnifying lens, if correctly focused, can set leaves on fire if properly directed, and with enough sunlight.

Focus on the Now. Strive for it. Do it. If you are confused, focus on your confusion. If you disbelieve this, Focus on your disbelief. Or rather, focus on what you want. But FOCUS on it. Steady focus requires intention, so have one. Strengthen your will. Create resolves. Work towards them. And FOCUS. A diffuse mind is less effective than a diffuse magnifying lens, I postulate. Because while the physical space rests on three dimensions (or so it seems), our mind can travel on vastly, perhaps infinitely more. And to focus your mind effectively, it will serve you well to understand its space. Learn it. Experience it. Explore the other dimensions you have for so long neglected, due to whatever reason. Be it fear, its buddy shame, ITS buddy pride, mistrust, dislike, hate, remorse, disillusionment, ignorance, impatience, apathy - for any reason. I postulate that all people are curious, because Life is curious. It explores possibilities. But it needs you to allow to it to explore. Learn. Understand. Explore paths you've never taken. Do that thing you've wanted to do - paint a picture, learn to whistle, smile at that girl or that boy, or ask that hippie guy at the cafeteria why he wears a baseball cap every single #@!$ day.

Focus on the #@!$ NOW. NOW. Now is never now again. It is not something postponable. It is, literally, quite truthfully, now or never. You are experiencing your existence right now, and it will never be the same. Don't you want to enjoy it?

It is not trivial to learn how to focus. It takes time and effort to tame a wild mind. "Treat it as you would an unruly horse". Tame it. Have it take you where you want, or else you will be dragged to where it whims.

But "No effort is ever wasted". Intend to focus. Pursue it. Strive for it. It is accomplishable, and the results are overwhelmingly worthwhile.

P.S. I noticed the importance of Focus minutes ago, while folding my laundry. I realized that, if I was whistling Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata 3rd Movement whil folding my underwear, I would perform neither as well as I could. And it was true. It took a slight effort, but after a few mental derailings (which are so common nowadays), I entered a stable state of my mind and my body working together to fold my laundry. This made the experience more enjoyable, more memorable, and it empowered me during that while.

Focus on the Now.
Expand your Dimensionality.
Strive to be Happy.
Nov 27, 2011

Song of the Street Violinist on Squirrel Hill

(Date is approximate)

Yo soy una mujer

que le gusta cantar

como a los pájaros les gusta volar

Cuando hace frío,

me gusta tocar

canciones que calientan

mi corazón

Cuando hace calor,

me gusta mirar,

todo lo que Él

hizo en su Creación

Oct 16, 2011

Now Hiring Servers

Interview room

- Good morning sir. Are you here for the server position?
- (Strong southern/old-timer accent). SURE AM!
- So do you have experience working as a server?
- EXPERIENCE?? Sure Hell I got experience! I've been working as a server for the last 30 years!!
- So can you tell me a little about your experience as a server?


- Sure can!! I worked EVERY DAY during the last 30 YEARS at a techie company out in Seattle. Ran Unix every day, tha's for sure. I've been working straight on Unix-based OS's since ah started. Been serving files, pages, databases, ya name it. Never any complaints, never any down-time. Unix is built like a charm ya know, strong as a bullet. And having a server like me don't hurt either. I'm top-o'the-line you know, best in ma generation. Now I may not be fancy like the last atomic computers and whatnot, but if you're surea something, its'a I'm the most reliable server you'll ever get the pleasure of seeing. 30 years straight working, and a'm still running. They just don't make 'em like they used to, ya know.
An' maybe y'all think I don't know howta serve the new stuff just cause I ain't have fancy USB ports. But lemme tell ya something - I keep myself in shape. A check software updates on me fancy internet every day, been getting lots more'a those lately. A keep with the times. Just last week a updated to the new Apache server - ran a full self-checkup, I ain't got one corrupted bit in ma system. I can serve the latest FTP protocol, SSH, keep ma certificates clean, Tomcat 7.0 with Java 1.7, latest PHP, latest ma sequel, that other elephant sequel, and even macrosoft sequel even if I donna like it. But lemma tell you somthing - don't make me serve IIS pages cause that screws up ma system. Screws up any system, ya know. 's a shame that shit was ever written.
An' if you're keen on the personal service, A even serve fancy VNC windows to the users that want detail. Can do standard terminal, "shell" like ey call 'em now, and also da fancy GUI that comes with ma latest Ubuntu too. But a can't give 'em all my space, you know - I need some for myself to keep serving like I do.

- That all sounds very well. You might just be exactly what we're looking for.
- You bet I am!
- But let me ask you something - are you experienced at serving tables?

-TABLES!?! Hell I've been serving tables ma whole Life! Even when ya din't have that fancy dynamic sql scripting, I used to serve hundreds, thousands tables sometimes! Even back when sequel was the fancy new query language, I knew how to serve 'em all. Started with DB2. Those were simple times, but now that an's a goner. Then they gave me Informix, and it was all going well until people started wanting macrosoft. I served macrosoft sequel for five whole years. That was a bad time for me ya know - that program's just on't make sense sometimes. An' one'a those times made a big mess, lost a lot of people's tables, an' they were blaming me. But then the other servers started getting the same problems. Hell, don't blame the server when the service is crazy.
So now I serve tables on all that open-source fancy sequel. The community effort makes the programs a real charm. Smooth like butter. And they adapted me a fancy new, whatcha call it, solid state drive, fast like a racecar, so I can memorize about millions of them now. Only hold 26 now though, since my company went down.

- Excellent. I think you'll fit into our team just well. Can you start Monday?
- MONDAY?!? But it's Friday!! What the hell am'a gonna do til then?? A used to go browsing around the internet, but it's all garbage out there - ain't any servers out there serving anything better than me.
- I guess you'll just have to wait a few days. Find a hobby. Life is full of choices.
- Ya're telling me! But lemme tell you, it ain't no choice for me to be a server. Always been, always will be. I'll see ya Monday, 7 AM sharp! Keep your clocks in sync!

The Present

Learning to focus on the Now is so important. I just realized. The mind learns. It learns our habits, and it imitates them afterwards. If we practice Focus, it will focus. If we practice out-thinking, it will learn out-thinking.

Doing one thing and thinking about another is unfocus. You probably do not do the one well nor do you do the other. Perhaps more importantly, the behavior extends. It learns.

If you do one thing while thinking about another, you are probably more willing to invest your energy into that another. And so you drag the time, your thoughts, and your actions through it until you manage to reach that another. And during this time, the mind does one thing while thinking about another.

When you reach that another and manage to invest yourself upon it, you will, for a while, and then your mind will resume its learned pattern - to think about another. For it has learned to do so - it has learned to be bored of its present and to focus on another. So no matter what the Now is, it will learn to look forward to another.

Because in this ever-changing complex world, the mind has a single reliable point of reference: Yourself, Here, and Now. All other objects, tasks, places, times, weathers, people, thoughts, emotions, and concepts are relative and uncertain. So as a learning device, the mind can only distinguish the Yourself, Here and Now, and the rest of the world. Thus - Focus on your Now.

If you eat, focus on your food. If you rest, focus on your rest. If you think of your work while you eat, you wil learn to think of eating while you work. And you will accomplish neither adequately.

Focus on the Now, then, so that your mind is not pulled and dragged and waved like an unmanned sailboat in the storms of the world. Learn to be Here and be Now, to stay as a decisive rock, able and capable to move and turn to ITS own volition, Or learn to think about another.