Focus

To be totally honest, I was slightly dreading the art review today. I remembered the last time we went through the art pieces with Charlie Chaplin. People were making interesting points, but I was still pretty bored and I dozed off the entire time. Of course I didn't want to. My brain sometimes takes my control away and starts running towards the clouds.

This time was different though. I was fully intrigued by the conversation we were having on all the Dada pieces. After having a full year of STAC under my belt, I had some intelligent things to say beyond "That piece looks really cool!" What once seemed unbearably dull suddenly became quite interesting.

I think it's interesting how your brain can change the amount of interest it puts in. No one wants to be lazy, but there are just some subjects where no matter how hard you try to focus, it still makes no sense. Is interest a conscious or unconscious decision? Or both?

In the beginning of last year, I trained myself to listen to music. It used to be if I attempted to listen to any song beyond a basic pop song, my mind would just drift in the first 30 seconds and I wouldn't remember a single thing I heard. For some reason, I just couldn't pay attention. My brain wouldn't operate.

In order to be able to listen to this music without boring myself, I kept it on while doing other things. While doing homework, brushing teeth, lying around, I kept the music on in the background CONSTANTLY. Eventually, I adapted to it. When I attempted to listen to the music on its own, I found that my focus lasted longer and longer. It went from 30 seconds to 2 minutes to the whole song just about. The music became so much more enjoyable.

Maybe focus takes practice. That would explain many things. Why don't many people read books? Books require focus, which you need to work at before it becomes fluent. Why is music so simple nowadays? People haven't trained themselves to focus into listening to something that won't immediately make sense in their mind. Why do most people quickly browse through art museums? They haven't trained themselves to look at one piece for a long time.

The thing is, if you were to follow the logic that focus takes practice, how come some people at our age still can't focus in class? Perhaps it's a combination of effort and desire to learn.

Maybe that's one of the flaws of common education. People don't feel like fighting the discouraging powers of their inability to focus. They don't see a purpose. Maybe if there was something to convince people to fight their natural habit of not paying attention, people would improve.

There's still another thing to consider though. Even though some people have put the effort to improve their focusing skills, most of the general population has not. How can you create focused art for those who are unable to focus? How can you have complex art if there aren't people able to appreciate it? Sure you could make your complex art anyway, but if most people can't handle it then you've gone for broke. Conforming to simple ideals to please an audience is bad as well. Is there a balance?