Stagnant Focus

 Stagnant Focus

🤣

Focus itself, is a herculean task of late (fast pace of life)

And to ‘talk’ of its stagnation? 😭

But, if ‘learning skills’ mean anything to us, we do need to look at focus a bit deeper.

Skilled tasks need better focus.

My life experience (samples purpose only)

a) At work place, a superior once asked me to do something very inappropriate. Just to oblige a customer who fed him with ‘gratifications’ (graft).

I refused. (only ‘reasonable’ orders of a superior needs to be obeyed. I had no weaknesses which could be exploited, hence no fears! 😂  I stayed bold!)

He growled “Don’t think I can’t do that job myself. I can do any clerical work, but you can’t do my job”

I didn’t have to ‘think’ of a reply : “Very true sir! For that matter, we both can do a sweeper’s job, but he can’t do a clerical or your job! But between both of us sweeping the floor, you might keep on sweeping the floor, while, I might invent a ‘vacuum cleaner’ after few days of sweeping!!”

Red-faced,  he proceeded to do that unethical task by himself. 

He missed my point.  Focus shouldn’t stagnate even at a menial-looking task like sweeping floors, if we like to keep evolving.

b)Somewhere during 1966 my dad granted me permission to learn ‘typewriting’ (those manual and mechanical machines, where the finger tips hammer the keys). He didn’t want me to end up as a typist in my life. 

A very strict instruction “ Do not aspire for speed, ever.  In typing, speed is an inevitable consequence, not the purpose. Accuracy will abandon you for ever, if you focus on speed while learning” 

I had to change 6 ‘typing institutes’ because the owner of the 5 previous ones didn’t like me spending days/month on stupidity like “a,s,d,f,g,f.... ;,l,k,j,h,j” (called budget). The sixth fellow didn’t care what i did.  He focused only on monthly ‘fee’ of Rs.6 (then)

After 6 months, a couple of months of sentences like “the quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog” (a to z)

I started of at 25 wpm :))  

My dad had learnt typing. But was using his skill very rarely.

One such unforgettable occasion was when his manager told : “ I am going to Head office by flight. No time to ‘draft’ that vital and important letter. Bring it directly to the airport. Use a taxi car. I will pay for it.” ( He briefly told dad about the ‘matter’ and dad said “please sign at this place here” on a blank printed-letter-head paper.” That manager stared in disbelief!  The signature is usually at a place where the ‘body’ of a letter ends, and below the words ‘yours faithfully,’ with a “manager” typed below the signature.)  

Dad had very little time. He typed it. That signature stood where it had to, though the structure was built around it, only after  😳.  Later, he counted the words. Time, he knew since  he was racing against it :))  He said “ it happened to be 72 wpm” with a ‘matter-of-fact-only’ kind of expression. 

I bookmarked this incident, which I never witnessed, but my dad’s narrative is, as always, flawless, owing to the bed-time stories we squeezed out of him, as his 3 kids!

(my take= type writing can expand its scope of newer skills in it if we are better-focused while learning)f

one funny thing I noticed (pertains only to me, a ‘half-mad’ fellow). After learning typing, my mind started “chanting” the spellings of each word that I ‘write’ with my ‘hand’ and using a ‘pen’ 🤣🤣😜

That was new!  Otherwise, hitherto, spellings were just a practice of kid age, despite the mismatch of pronunciation & its spellings in English 🤣

I started looking at more possibilities, when spelling each word became a possibility, afresh, each time. Slowly, phrases, sentences, why.... even concepts started preceding what I think+write, not while ‘copypasting’.

Toughest challenge ever.

Focus during breathing.  Keep watching that ‘stupid-breath’. 

It begets mind-fatigue at supersonipartc speed 😜🤣

And, ancients spent decades practicing to focus better and better, and...better their own breath!!!

Gautama Buddha did the ‘known’ part  of research best at breath-watching. 

Awesome results!  We not only become better at focusing on breath, but our ‘focusing skills’ grow phenomenally !!! ‘Stagnation’ stagnates far behind, when breath-watching evolves.

Stagnantly yours,

psn(13th Oct, 2025)