Science involves concentration upon observed phenomena and, to a lesser degree, a body of models. The goal is to make good models.
Engineering is like science but heavier on the models. The goal is to make good machines.
Art is like science but lighter on the models. And some of the observed phenomena are esoteric. The goal is to make good art.
All 3 use concentration. Concentration is important.
As do some glasses of orange
Title
:::> All 3 use concentration. Concentration is important.
Than why the heck do I still exist? My concentration is like the getaway driver in a bank robbery that you hired when you saw for fun? that they drove absolutely at the complete limit for the hell of it and you had never seen someone drive like that, and they knew all the roads around the bank because they had spent countless nights speeding on them like a mad man with a deathwish… except when you actually do the bank robbery and get in the car, the getaway driver is still just operating under the philosophy that driving like a complete madman is fun and that is why they are doing it.
This results in an extremely long police chase, that you may or may not get a way in, but it is guranteed to be cinematic as fuck. This is how ADHD people become so damn good at whatever their getaway driver becomes focused on, and how they can be stone cold calm even amid utter chaos (because to them, now for the briefest of moments the chaos has made things calm for just a moment finally).
In terms of controlling my concentration I have mostly given up with telling lies about robbing a bank and needing to run as fast as we can to the getaway driver (that is my concentration in this metaphor if I have butchered my metaphor so badly this is confusing…) instead I get a cotton laundry bag, fill it with junk, walk just through the doors of the bank and then go bananas yelling gibberish at the banktellers as I run out the doors, jump in the getaway car with an excited WHOOP! and ride.
Sometimes the police do catch us and pull us over and are ready to arrest us for a bank robbery until they call the bank and realize that the person brought the cotton bag into the bank, turned around and ran out like they had robbed the bank when clearly they had barely stepped foot in it.
The police tell the getaway driver “you have so much potential, if only you could focus it in a productive way” to which the getaway driver hears the truth obscured underneath forgetting the words said outloud immediately… “we must control and define your genius because we are afraid of it”.
The getaway driver whispers to their heart don’t worry, hell no and I reply out loud “not unless you want ME to become a getaway driver too”.
Habit? Inertia?
Survival
Whenever I let it all hang out here, I invariably end up offending 99% of the people. And that’s frustrating and dull.
I have yet to offend you, apparently. So allow me to let it hang out a bit more.
Magic is like science, but lighter on the models. In that observation is key.
Or like art, but lighter on the art-making. In that esoteric stuff is touched.
My point is concentration isn’t an engineered point of forced coming together that has been planned as a ruse against the cruel mysteries of the universe.
Concentration is a crossroads, a natural coming together point, a city that already exists in your mind, you just have to find it except when you do, it irrevocably changes the city and risks sending the true heart of your concentration somewhere else and thus at least for some of us “concentration” is the name for an eternal wild goose chase not a name for a set of tools we have in our woodworking shop.
Despite the hugeness of its effects, I’m inclined to the “set of tools” model mself. I hold my focused attention upon a thing. I hold it there as I would hold my fngertip upon a spot on the wall. It’s as simple as that. It is a thing that I can do. A power.
Fair but listen to me when I say our minds are nothing alike, if you ever pretend to understand what makes people like me tick it will be the beginning of your undoing for better or worse.
I don’t have the strength to press my finger onto the wall even a tiny bit, but I am riding the tip of a sabot round so ability to apply pressure is an irrelevant property to my hurtling journey.
Listen to me, because no matter how strong you get, how expertly you find that particular place and press it with practiced knowledge, you will be utterly leveled by someone with a mind like me hitting that same point at 1670 m/s.
And creativity!
