Attention Span

The smaller the font the faster your eyes will tire & the faster you’ll fall asleep, even if you don’t want to fall asleep. This is one of my Kindle lessons after dozing off & reading the same passage three times before I realized I was dozing off & reading the same passage again (did you just nod off reading this 🙂 )

I’ve found that over the years my attention span for certain things has changed. An hour of TV, at one time, is more than enough passive participation for me – I can manage that hour a few times scattered through the day. Sit down for longer than that to watch something & I’m up after first half-hour for a snack 🙂 Seeing theatric productions can be torture – trapped in the dark & I can’t even check my cell phone! Yikes.

Even household tasks are broken down into ‘bites.’ I could have cleared out my basement in three days of work – a few hours in the morning, another couple after a lunch break. But I opted to do it over a month or so, of a little over an hour sessions, a couple of mornings a week. Make that 90 minutes to include getting the vacuum out, etc. I did it piecemeal & got it done. I can’t imagine going to a day job, wether in an office or working at home, for six or seven hours at a stretch. 

When working on editing, or writing new material I find a focused hour, twice a day is all I can manage for the physical part, the mind never takes a break. Movies get watched in 50 minute bites. The only time I see a film from start to finish is with my Saturday movie guy – recently we’ve been watching the Tudors – two episodes at a time. 

The one thing I do for the longest stretch of uninterrupted time is sleep 🙂

Kentic (March 2008)

the faster I move

the less I weigh

the faster I talk

the more I get to say

squeezing out not taking in

the less I take in

the less there is to carry

the less I carry 

the faster I can move

<>

stay in motion

moving targets

get shot at more

but they get hit less

I avoid straight lines

darting back & forth

spinning out into controlled curves

tumbling when necessary

moving too fast

for moisture to stay 

for sweat to bead

drier than dry

<>

l becomes like a wake 

when I am not awake

I don’t move in my sleep

I am like death

so still 

not even my breath can be seen

sleep is for the weak

and I am weak

it is my frailty 

the need to keep moving is 

fuelled by the sleep of righteousness

<>

only the pure of art

can move as fast as I do

can slip the sling of gratification

to be like a sun beam 

faster than the speed of 

found you this time

no one finds me

no one holds me

<>

I’m not slippery 

just too fast to be caught

too nimble to be confined

free of all encumbrances 

except the envy of those 

who want to be free

who feel that to trap this flash

is the only way they can bottle 

their own timid energy 

their own fragile pleasures

the resolution of not catching me

isn’t enough to satisfy them

that’s all they’ll ever get

<>

words of understanding 

aren’t enough to slow me down

I don’t need to be understood to be free

I don’t need permission to disappear

before your very eyes

into a mist of mystery

who was that unasked man

I don’t need an invitation

don’t have to wait for opportunity

don’t make them for myself 

don’t stay long enough

<>

the flame flicker wind 

darting around me

singes then gone

out like a light

out the window

out out out

washed clean 

not a trace of me

not even in memory 

<>

the secret of my success

to be so fast I am not memorized

not recalled

not even a vague discomfort

beyond the spark of envy

for the moment of realization

the faster I move

the less you care 

let’s keep it that way