verb
to concentrate on something and pay particular attention to it
to turn a part on a camera, telescope, microscope, etc. until you can see something clearly
if your eyes focus, or if you focus your eyes, you look at something carefully until you can start to see it clearly
if a lens or mirror focuses rays of light, or if they focus, they meet at a particular point
noun
the thing that people are concentrating on or paying particular attention to
particular attention paid to something
the act of concentrating on a particular goal and not wasting time or energy on other things
the state of being able to be seen clearly
the part of a camera, telescope, microscope, etc. that you turn until you can see something clearly
Colin Wilson
"The secret is this: that the poor quality of human life and consciousness—is due to the feebleness of the beam of attention that we direct at the world.
Imagine that you have a powerful searchlight, but it has no reflector inside it.
When you turn it on, you get a light of sorts, but it rushes off in all directions, and a lot of it is absorbed by the inside of the searchlight.
Now if you install a concave reflector, the beam is polarized, and stabs forward like a bullet or a spear. The beam immediately becomes ten times as powerful. But even this is only a half measure, for although every ray of light now follows the same path, the actual waves of light are ‘out of step’, like an undisciplined army walking along a street.
If you now pass the light through a ruby laser, the result is that the waves now ‘march in step’, and their power is increased a thousand-fold—just as the rhythmic tramping of an army was able to bring down the walls of Jericho.
The human brain is a kind of searchlight that projects a beam of ‘attention’ on the world. But it has always been like a searchlight without a reflector. Our attention shifts around from second to second; we do not really have the trick of focusing and concentrating the beam. And yet it does happen fairly often.
For example, as Fleishman observed, the sexual orgasm is actually a focusing and concentrating of the ‘beam’ of consciousness (or attention).
The beam of attention suddenly carries more power, and the result is a feeling of intense pleasure.
The ‘inspiration’ of poets is exactly the same thing. By some fluke, some accidental adjustment of the mind, the beam of attention is polarized for a moment, and whatever it happens to be focused on appears to be transformed, touched with ‘the glory and the freshness of a dream’.
There is no need to add that so-called ‘mystical’ visions are exactly the same thing, but with an accidental touch of the laser thrown in. When Jacob Boehme saw the sunlight reflected on a pewter bowl, and declared that he had seen all heaven, he was speaking the sober truth.
Human beings never realize that life is so dull because of the vagueness, the diffuseness, of their beam of attention—although, as I say, the secret has been lying at the end of their noses for centuries.
And since 1800, the parasites have been doing their best to distract them from this discovery— discovery that should have been quite inevitable after the age of Beethoven and Goethe and Wordsworth. They achieved this mainly by encouraging the human habit of vagueness and the tendency to waste time on trivialities.
A man has a sudden glimpse of a great idea; for a moment, his mind focuses. At this point, habit steps in. His stomach complains of being empty, or his throat complains of dryness, and a false little voice whispers: ‘Go and satisfy your physical needs, and then you’ll be able to concentrate twice as well’. He obeys—and immediately forgets the great idea.“
Excerpt From: ["The Mind Parasites" by Colin Wilson]
See Also
18.20 - Mind - the focus of Christianity
Aggregation
Assimilation
Concentration
Delusionally Persistent
Determination