Focus and multi-tasking

I’m not a multi-tasker. It was nice to hear of a report recently that said that even though multi-tasking was thought previously to be good for the brain, this is no longer considered to be true. There you go, another one of those studies like the ones about food that, just when you’re getting used to everyone looking at you funny because you still eat butter, reverses its findings so that, if you were so inclined, you could say “I told you so.”

Being as I’m not a multi-tasker, multi-tasking times wear on me. This month, just as I was starting on the first home improvements in fifteen years, I was called for jury duty. I had to quick finish up with my taxes before that started last week. The jury duty has been great actually, but I can’t talk about it. And even if I could, I’d be stymied by the way my brain gets when it’s had multi-tasking thrust upon it.

The great thing about any creative endeavor is that it requires focus. That’s also its curse in a multi-tasking world. One thing I can say about the beauty of jury duty is that it’s focused: cell phones off, previous obligations canceled, attention required and also appreciated. Ah. No wonder I’ve been liking it.

I’m in one of my periods where it seems stupid to share when no one’s sharing back. I’ve finally signed on with a new website company who assures me that I haven’t had the kind of blog that gets noticed. Then I feel the whole blessing/curse thing again.

If you’ve noticed, I’m also taking a break from writing on the practices of A Course of Love. Maybe doing that writing even started the “why do it” feeling because, when you write with a somewhat more serious intention of sharing, you have more a yen for response. With a nice obscure little blog, you can mainly just write for the fun of it, when you take your break from other things, when you can respond to the yen to spend a few minutes with that creative side of yourself that you’ve been missing – just to get back in touch with “it” rather than with anyone else.

I maintain that writers write for themselves. Sharing is a side benefit. If sharing were the major intention, most of us would be hopelessly disappointed. Our creative sources call us out. They won’t be ignored. They invite us to spend time with ourselves and to express that time in words (or music, art, wood). Don’t ask me why. But, since I know we’re all creative types of one sort or another, I’m sure you understand.

Getting a red light

My New Book


Walked out to the cabin this morning. Granted, I had my down coat on at the time, but it felt nearly balmy. I’ve been wondering what the new red light has been down the way, assuming it to be a temporary light for the construction or from the equipment along the freeway ramp. This morning I realized it’s the cause of the construction. The newly installed traffic light glares boldly into my woods. I can see it from the house. The whole time the ramp work has been going on, I knew they were changing the traffic signal from a stop sign to stop and go lights…and still…when the light showed up in my woods it was a shocker. I hadn’t thought I’d see it. Hadn’t imagined how high it would be. Hadn’t imagined it peaking over my fence. The ramp isn’t open yet and the light is permanently set to red at the moment. Soon it will be an ever-changing range of red, yellow, green. Pooh.

I’ve been having technical difficulties lately. They started with my e-mail. I was preparing to send an announcement of The Given Self to my email list, which let me tell you, is not an organized list. When I want to send an email to someone I haven’t heard from in a while, I do a find for their name and respond to their last email to me. The lists I have in my address book are pretty old. Regardless, I was getting queasy about this from the get-go. I hate getting group emails and didn’t want to send one. I’d already decided to write one letter and send it to each individually. I’d sent it to about three people – well not “it” – but I’d mailed a personalized version of it (so personalized that it made the letter senseless) to those few, when my email went down. It’s probably recoverable, but not by me. So, if anyone’s reading this who once emailed me and would like me to have their address again sometime soon, send me a note.

I’m still surprised when technical difficulties arise to enforce an intuition. Still surprised even though it’s happened many times. More times than I can remember. Some would probably say these are flukes. Others that they’re the effect of my inner life reaching out and causing effect in my outer life. I’m beginning to believe the latter. I’m beginning to believe things happen on purpose. I’m beginning to believe things happen on purpose when I’m not intending them to…that the random isn’t random and the purposeful is contrived. It’s a variation on a theme I’ve been exploring for a while.

A cool thing happened yesterday to reinforce the original intuition if not the theme. I’d told a friend about all this and she sent me a “group” email she’d just received. It was well intended but awful. Simply awful. Who wants to get those things? Enough said.

But it’s kind of like the darn traffic signal. You think you know what will happen and then suddenly you’ve got a red light.