Competing with chaos

# Chapter 326

Where is your focus? Not just the target of your focus, but the power of your focus? Why can you read or play games or listen to music while there is chaos going on around you, but you can’t think and process? I would argue that you can, but at a reduced efficiency. There are fundamental differences in reading, games and music, than there is in thinking. Thinking requires consecutive thought processing and the more inputs you have going on around you, i.e. chaos, then the less possible your speed and depth and quality of thinking.

And the less accustom you are to the inputs assaulting you, the more difficult they are to block out and work through. My wife and I don’t have any televisions in the house. We never listen to this particular intruder. My dad listens to the TV at his house and loudly. The net result on me is that I think I would do better standing in the middle of the interstate highway with all those fast cars whipping around me, than I can do deep working while competing against the television, especially these news casts! Alone time here at my dad’s is nonexistent unless you are in the bathroom, so there isn’t really another time frame that would be better than any other. You can find your focus though, reduced it may be, through sheer willpower and pushing through the noise. There is always noise in the world, and yes certain noises are more powerful and intrusive than others, but keep our forward motion and we will make progress.