It seems there are a million things to focus on in any given moment. For instance, you are reading these words on this paper, but you are also holding the paper. How does the paper feel? The paper also has a smell. You are breathing it. Perhaps you have a cup of tea, and you smell that too. Your feet may be in socks or shoes, or bare, and they are on some surface. It may be warm or cold.
These are just some of the physical things you are experiencing in the moment — there may be much on your mind too. There certainly is on mine. There are so many things to think about and to do, and how to live becomes increasingly confusing every day. There are personal things, like work, food, time with friends and family. There’s paperwork and cleaning and the book I’m reading. There’s the fact that summer is ending and I’ve got phone calls to make and forms to sign for school. And then there’s various atrocities, scandals and ongoing crises in the news to process as well.
Perhaps it’s because I’m 18 now, and with more responsibilities, that the world has become dizzying. Being classified as a so-called “adult” makes my mind wander back to when I was younger, searching for some answer or solution.
Years ago when I was at The North Branch School my classmates and I sat around the big table with our eyes closed. In front of each of us was a napkin with a raisin on it. I fumbled for a moment before my fingers found the raisin. I picked it up and squeezed, rolling it around and feeling it warm to the temperature of my fingers. Around me my classmates did the same. We sniffed the raisins. We listened to the sound they made when we squished them right next to our ears. We opened our eyes and saw their red-brown color, and we tasted their flavor.
I had never spent more time with a singular morsel of food, or anything, for that matter, in my life, and I was amazed by how much intrigue and stimulation of senses could be caused by such a tiny thing. When I became focused and present, the small object became many things: taste, color, smell, sound, temperature, texture. It was beautiful and I didn’t even like raisins.
That was back when I didn’t have an iPhone. Growing up, my family had a landline and an old projector for looking at photographs. I started using a computer for school when it became necessary, but it wasn’t until 10th grade that I got the phone. I’ve never been the person who looks at their phone at dinner time or when someone is talking to me, but over the years I’ve heard many comments from older generations, along the lines of an irritated “The youth are so addicted to their technology,” accompanied with a disappointed shake of the head.
Although used casually, “addicted” is the key word. The technology we use day to day was undoubtedly designed to captivate and keep our attention for as much time as possible. In some ways, the “addicted youth,” especially the very young, are victims of technology and the marketing of it.
Of course, access to social media platforms and the internet offer a world of information, but in a way that is the biggest issue. In this modern time we homo sapiens, young and old, are in general massively over-stimulated. Technology and media are not the only factors, just ones specific to our time.
Reliance on drugs and alcohol for stimulation, or even social dramas and gossip, in addition to the everyday stresses we might face, all contribute to our lack of focus in the present space and moment.
I have no answer, no solution for it all. There are a million important thoughts to think and actions to be made, but unless one is given full focus they will not be as powerful.
This morning I had a glass of orange juice, and I tried to focus on just that one thing. Taste, color, smell, sound, temperature, texture. For a moment that was all there was. I am hoping that if I practice that focus, that presence, I might someday apply it to something more pressing than orange juice, and that it may be powerful.
Leeya Tudek is a 2019 Mount Abraham Union High School grad from South Lincoln. She enjoys painting, being outdoors, good conversations, and writing.