Sometimes you have to stop listening to hear.
Today I found myself playing 8 distinct songs at once. Listening to a particular song in the sea of noise is actually quite easy. But when I tried to hear all at once, I couldn’t. As I tried to listen to each song individually, yet together, the more focused I became. And the more I failed. Soon songs, my hearing, became periodic and stuttered. Sure, I could hear a few songs together easily. But when I tried to pickup the fourth and fifth… Either I lost one of them or things became disjunct. I became bound by time and the limitations of my focus.
To hear them all, I had to take a mental step back and stop trying to focus on /listening/ to everything. To experience and understand it, I had to become unfocused, only then could I hear clarity. Only then could I hear and listen to everything. Yet, all I had to do is hear. The only thing that changed was my mindset.
Intense emotion I find suffers from a similar problem. Anger, perhaps the easiest example. I am unable to see everything else going on. I can’t think. My thoughts constrained to a few paths. My senses squelched (Aside, I heard recently from a doctor that the last estimate he heard was there are over 84 senses. 5 is baloney. For example, think about your sense of dizziness, or orientation. Am I upside down or upright? Or Hungry? etc…). I’m only feeling, focused on the emotion, the feeling of anger. Unable to think or snap out of it. Isn’t depression the same? Isn’t happiness?
And while yes, that is the definition of focus. What would feeling/emotion be without focus? A thought in passing you are never able to experience?
In away, this is what meditation is all about. The more I tried to focus on a song, the more difficult it would become to keep track of it. But, if I stopped trying to listen and just listened, just heard. I could hear everything. I could hear the saxophone, harpsichord, piano, rubber bass even voices, all at the same time.
I suspect, for many here, depression is a elongation of a focus. What to do about it? I don’t know. Just a thought.
2 comments
What a cool analogy. I’m tempted to try the experiment myself but I know I would fail miserably. I can’t even listen to a 3-voice round of Row Row Row Your Boat without getting a nosebleed.
But I agree, trying too hard to focus an anything is what leads to problems with the whole. I wonder though… when you step back and passively take in the big picture, does that lead to a general numbness or apathy toward what’s going on?
My example would be like a battlefield where thousands are dying, versus seeing just 1 soldier get his head blown off in front of you. In the first case you can probably deal with it better because you remain at a distance. But is that the “right” way to take in life? I really don’t know, I’m just working off this cool idea of yours.
Hrm, I didn’t really have a point when I wrote this.
I suppose, if any it is: if you get lost focusing on that one soldier, you are probably next.
I don’t think either way of thinking is better. But sometimes we get so caught up, so focused, that we try even harder to focus. The harder we try, the more elusive and disjunct things become. The less they make sense. Maybe it’s approaching the problem from the wrong direction.
Thought provoking as ever Salt.