I chose this name two years ago, Focused Convergence, feeling it very significant at the time. Now more than ever, alone and focused on growth and healing, I am the point where my life comes together, as are we all. It’s just our responsibility to harmonize it in the way we want, using our unique sets of skills and challenges. And to be honest about our wants and needs, and honest in the pursuit of them
A few years ago, I went through a lot. There was a lot of physical and psychological trauma. It became very difficult to function, to solve even the smallest problem, and initially solutions were hard to come by. But eventually I found that, if I just focused enough to be able to ask the question, enough to write it down, to concretize it, then the answer usually came to me. I just had to focus. And if I held multiple foci together and with the right attitude, then goals began to interweave and come together, to converge. And it just sort of made sense that all of the things that I value, all of the goals, all of the systems of holding information and tasks together, is the union of a lot of foci, harmonized. In a way, we are harmonized union, the convergence of the disparate foci that we choose to hold, choose to give energy to.
Before all the trauma, before all the brain damage, I was very good at hyperfocusing, but really not great at linear management, like tasks and time, for which I have always heavily relied upon tools, like lists and calendars. Now, as I find some of these issues magnified, I find myself leaning into these tools, and learning to use them in new ways to help me to build anew.
I use tools, lots of them. Paper, pen, tablets, styli, network-attached storages. I feel like I’ve awakened in a brave, new era of technology that, while fraught with dangers, also has the realization of so many childhood technological fantasies. These tools allow me to function almost magically sometimes, and the integration of their functions has been a subject of much thought over my life. And because I find myself writing out nearly everything as a way of processing thought and creating solutions, because I feel like I’m not the only one with a lot of these issues, and because I really do enjoy writing, I decided to start sharing these observations about life and technology and how I try to fit them together.
I tried to dissuade myself from this at first, thinking it would have terrible readership or little appeal, and maybe I should just start a tech integration blog, but I think of the obscure YouTubers who salvaged my mental health last year, just by existing, and it occurs that you never know the positive ripples you send out in the world that could save a life or at least some quantifiable levels of sanity. And it feels just right to do this.
In this way, I hope that some of my experiences, in whatever sphere of life, can bring ease and joy back into the lives of at least one or two people.