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You are here: Home / Cycle-of-Life Season / 1 Dormancy / Concentrating

Concentrating

Salvador Dali, The Lacemaker (after Vermeer) (1954-55)

 
Salvador Dali, The Lacemaker (after Vermeer) (1954-55)

 

 

 

Concentrating is an aspect of order in domain of thinking.

Unlocking bits of the unseen order – penetrating into the unknown and making it known – or succeeding in many fields of endeavor is best done through concentrated effort. Most of our notable examples of learning and advancement are products of intense and sustained concentration of thought and effort, channeled by conducive feelings and attitudes.

 

Real

True Narratives

  • Johann Hari, Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention – And How to Think Deeply Again (Crown, 2022): “Hari breaks down the many causes of our lack of attention into two categories: too much and too little. Too much information, stress, surveillance and manipulation, and ADHD diagnoses. Not enough sleep, novel reading, navel gazing and nutritious food.”
  • Jamie Kreiner, The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction (Liveright, 2023), “shows that the struggle to focus is not just a digital-age blight but afflicted even those who spent their lives in seclusion and prayer.”

Imaginary

Visual Arts

Jean-Paul Laurens, The Old Scientist, or The Alchemist

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

Alvin Lucier has experimented with sound, emphasizing snails-pace changes in oscillations and other musical components. To derive the most from his music, listen with concentrated attention.

  • “Music for Piano with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillators XL”
  • “Music on a Long Thin Wire” (1980)
  • “Navigations” album

Albums:

  • Third Coast Percission, “Quartered”: “Quartered is a percussion quartet for live ensemble or for playback as a four-way sound installation. The instrumentation includes glass bottles, wood planks, ceramic tiles, metal pipes, electric toothbrushes, and resonant metallic instruments called sixxen. When performed live, each performer receives a headphone feed of one of four distinct metronomes. The independent clocks relate to one another differently throughout the piece, sometimes maintaining a proportionate relationship, and at other times flexing and contracting to dictate phasing events. Sustained, "irrational" composite rhythms sometimes result, as the metronomes/performers play all together in the same tempo but out of synch with one another.”

January 31, 2010

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