Decipher Guide to Ease with Focus
To achieve focus that is both emergent and engaging, relate differently to suffering
Focus is a natural skill.
You may or may not see yourself as having problems with focus
You likely find other people’s problems with focus to be an ongoing annoyance
Such as, Why can’t they focus long enough to see that I am right?!
Natural focus is not the same as the desire for self-similar attention
Think of natural focus as relaxed attention. That makes it a paradox.
Masterful focus is natural focus applied with intention...
like a martial AT EASE command.
Masterful Focus: the cycle
Afflictions of focus
You intend to focus on something new or different, or something old in a new way. Yet you space out or give in to distraction. What is going on?
OR
A subject engages you but soon your body sends you messages to react. You keep your composure but divide your attention.
Externally, or in the moment, you respond as if you are intent on the subject
Internally, or after the fact, you plan or imagine a reaction intended to contradict, undermine, or disgrace yourself or another.
When you are able to look at it objectively, this feels inauthentic, fake, controlled.
Attention! Focus balances forces
When a confrontational situation demands you come to ATTENTION, focus meets force. Depending on the situation, you respond with:
Get me outta here, I don’t want to fight (outside or in)! Enter an attentional fog or choose distraction.
I am determined to beat the opposition, which starts with cataloging the flaws that I astutely perceive. Divide attention, disconnecting outer and inner experiences.
I choose to enter the focus cycle. Notice being AT EASE with paying ATTENTION, and seeking to use focus masterfully.
Focus: Rational and controlled is not enough
Many afflictions of focus are real and may be rationally justified as
an issue with my brain,
a normal reaction to information overload, or
○a clever response to unwelcome manipulation
Natural focus however remains, and with it a relaxing of the desire to be in control of things outside of the self.
Flaws and conflicts challenge natural focus -- and also potentially inform Masterful Focus.
Un-masterful focus is in-between, the breeding ground for the bitter ironies experienced as timeless, futile struggles over control.
At Ease with Focus: Overview
In this post, I explain
The layers of focus
Automatic, intangible logical processes that affect focus
Masking
Binding
Focus-related behaviors and habits and how they work
Readiness for focus and how it lies in our relationship to suffering
Focus engages layers of experience
Ask: What level am I focusing on? Can I notice other levels at the same time? Or shift my awareness among them without losing focus?
Masking integrates the layers of focus
If you haven’t considered that focus has distinct layers, don’t worry. It’s automatic, like the atmosphere or a prism dispersing light into a variety of wavelengths!
Masking is to focus what refraction is to a wavelength detector (like your eyes).
Masking refers to hiding aspects of an object of focus. This is most often done simply by consciously or unconsciously applying an assumption. It can be by logical process or not.
The same process supports us in having an integrated sense of experience with its far-reaching layers of focus.
Noticing it rather than just taking it for granted, you have the chance to master this (p)art of focus!
Limitations of masking
Unavoidable. Choosing what to focus on through masking is the only way to avoid being lost in overwhelm by all possible options (“option paralysis”)
Regrettable. The rest of what we are not paying attention to is still there, so masking always creates layers of misunderstanding … and humor!
Short on mystery. Masking gives us tautological, or “because I said so,” experiences. Unaware masking steers us away from potentially useful unknowns.
In learning and exercising masterful focus, the limitations of masking can be approached as perceptual, not phenomenal.
The shadow cycle of masking
With masking, we confine our perception by modifying our focus. This brings into play a limited version of the object of focus (subject), one that may well in some way (and not coincidentally) match our needs.
Focus can thus be actively used to mask others, our influence, self-image, or even reality. When done to avoid the burden of recognizing suffering or resolving binds (more on that soon), ready/set/go focus is hijacked for shadow masking.
Individuals and systems are both intertwined and limited by what is hidden through masking. This gives unmasterful focus the quality of being both restrictive... and strangely comforting.
Game on: Dealing with complex limiting patterns
Our natural-born ability to focus connects us with what is emerging and engaging, and orients us toward focusing masterfully.
Forced focus orients us toward relating through complex limiting patterns. Think of these like “game plays” in team or strategy sports.
Forced focus that is also unmasterful leads to unnecessary suffering and collective vigilantism.
Social problems thus in part stem from faulty collective understanding of focus and lack of At ease type of focus. We make games out of serious things and take the big game too seriously!
Binding: the name of the game
Can you think of a single predicament* that doesn’t fit into one of these categories?
(* a problem with no apparent solution. This exercise is not rhetorical.)
Each is a bind.
Binding and the function of negative focus
When focus is beset by awareness of real, imagined, or hypothetical predicaments, we enter a bind. Predicaments trigger negative focus (not ready, not set, and/or no go).
Negative focus directs us to what is to be avoided or needed but missing.
To exit such binds, eliminate the predicament or resume the focus cycle by acknowledging what is missing or avoided.
Negative focus is a necessary adaptation that actually or apparently ensures safety. Catastrophic thinking is an extreme form.
Here’s an example
Negative assumptions about rejection, creativity, or convergence collapse focus into the bind of Wounded Pride.
To hide or ignore the conditions that set up “not ready”, “not set”, or “no go,” mask a certain layer of focus with Wounded Pride, in effect collapsing focus to its negative.
A different strategy for resuming the focus cycle is to reset the bind by shifting your level of focus to other, influence, self-image, or reality.
In sum,
Binds are bad focal points from which to reason. They impede wholeness and grace.
Problems with focus arise, as often as not, from avoidance of necessary suffering, such as rejection (more on that in a bit).
Ready for Masterful Focus = able to sense suffering
As a result of binding, negativity is always a strain on focus.
Due to masking, suffering stimulates focus. Since emotionality also strains focus, readiness is often experienced as a double-edged sword.
Embrace that sensing suffering is not negative. Avoiding it is, because some suffering is necessary.
Focus builds grace when in positive flow
Masterful focus from a place of interior flow leads to
Impartial grace, sensed as wholeness or integrity in your process
Masterful focus affects exterior experiences such that
Useful, healing projections occur. Others mirror our process and experience grace through our influence
Goodness can be bound
To attain masterful focus and a thorough sense of goodness, examine your sense of rejection in relation to yourself, another or a situation.
Being conditioned by rejection is an inevitable, even noble, part of existence. This is because:
Readiness to sense rejection sets you up for creativity.
Creativity makes convergence possible.
Challenges to convergence inform your experiences of rejection.
Lack of readiness to sense rejection, including denying its emotional sting for yourself or others, limits goodness through the bind of Wounded Pride. The same happens with a critical lack of creativity or convergence.
Avoiding sensing the sad but true reality that rejection happens leads, more profoundly, to a breakdown of impartial goodness. Lack of impartial goodness leads to unnecessary suffering.
Limitations are part of life. Facing them while maintaining focus on goodness relieves the bind of Wounded Pride (green arrows). Contending with the necessary suffering of rejection readies you for creativity, convergence, and therein grace through goodness.
Willingness can be bound
To attain masterful focus and a thorough sense of willingness, examine your sense of wounding in relation to yourself, another or a situation.
Being conditioned by wounding is an inevitable, even noble, part of existence. This is because:
Readiness to sense wounding sets you up for nurturing.
Nurturing makes enduring possible.
Challenges to enduring inform your experiences of wounding.
Lack of readiness to sense wounding, including denying its emotional sting for yourself or others, limits willingness through the bind of Repressed Spirit. The same happens with a critical lack of nurturing or enduring.
Avoiding sensing the sad but true reality that wounding happens leads, more profoundly, to a breakdown of impartial willingness. Lack of impartial willingness leads to unnecessary suffering.
Limitations are part of life. Facing them while maintaining focus on willingness relieves the bind of Repressed Spirit (green arrows). Contending with the necessary suffering of wounding readies you for nurturing, enduring, and therein grace through greater willingness.
Evaluating can be bound
To attain masterful focus and thoroughness in evaluating, examine your sense of loss in relation to yourself, another or a situation.
Being conditioned by loss is an inevitable, even noble, part of existence. This is because:
Readiness to sense loss sets you up for play.
Play makes competition possible.
Challenges through competition inform your experiences of loss.
Lack of readiness to sense loss, including denying its emotional sting for yourself or others, limits thorough evaluation through the bind of Melodrama, or Finite Games. The same happens with a critical lack of play or competition.
Avoiding sensing the sad but true reality that loss happens leads, more profoundly, to a breakdown of impartial evaluation. Lack of impartial evaluation leads to unnecessary suffering.
Limitations are part of life. Facing them while maintaining focus on thoroughness of evaluation relieves the bind of Melodrama (green arrows). Contending with the necessary suffering of loss readies you for play, competition, and therein grace through values.
Envisioning can be bound
To attain masterful focus and thoroughness in envisioning, examine your sense of disorientation in relation to yourself, another or a situation.
Being conditioned by disorientation is an inevitable, even noble, part of existence. This is because:
Your readiness to sense disorientation sets you up for inquisitiveness.
Inquisitiveness makes disciplined activity possible.
Challenges through disciplined activity inform your experiences of disorientation.
Lack of readiness to sense disorientation, including denying its emotional sting for yourself or others, limits thorough envisioning through the bind of Obscurity. The same happens with a critical lack of inquisitiveness or disciplined activity.
Avoiding sensing the sad but true reality that disorientation happens leads, more profoundly, to a breakdown of impartial envisioning. Lack of impartial envisioning leads to unnecessary suffering.
Limitations are part of life. Facing them while maintaining focus on thoroughness of envisioning relieves the bind of Obscurity (green arrows). Contending with the necessary suffering of disorientation readies you for inquisitiveness, disciplined activity, and therein grace through vision.
Exercising focus: behaviors & habits
Active or engaged focus (contraction)
Improves chances for positive focus, reducing the problem of the negativity inherent in binding.
Activities that develop discernment
● Logic games, puzzles, philosophical discussions
● Lively dialogue with people whose logic is different than yours
Activities that develops compassion
● Being of service
● Engaged curiosity about the ways in which others have experiences different than yours
Passive or disengaged focus (relaxation)
Any activity requiring diffuse focus where you “go with the flow”
Resets your focal agenda, getting yourself out of your own way because masking always reinforces what you already know.
● Meditation
● Exercise
● Being engrossed in a film, novel, “binge watching” a series
● Being with nature… watching a sunset, flowing water, or candle; animal tracking; forest bathing
Masking and direct experience
Emotional masking works through control-conform of interpretations/abstractions
Happens when focus is at READY
Most difficult to apprehend. What does it mean to mask interpretations?
Mental masking works through control-conform of beliefs
Happens when focus is at SET
This is how “imagination” gets a bad rap
Physical masking works through control-conform of routines
Happens when focus is at GO
This is how “power” gets a bad rap
Interpretations: dynamic emotions permeate layers of focus
This is the systems view of the above information and requires a whole post of its own to unpack. Consider this a preview…
For better and worse, emotion is the modulator of our systematic interrelatedness.
Big Picture Bookends
Earthstar, wow! I found this piece incredibly intriguing, and admittedly, so rich that I had to return to it several times to grok each section and graphic slowly. Each pass seemed to reveal new layers I hadn’t seen before. The structure, language, and symbolism you’ve woven together feels quite deliberate, requiring a deep kind of attentive reading, perhaps fitting for the topic of focus.
Below, I’ve tried to summarize my key takeaways as best I could. I share them not as definitive interpretations, but as reflections-in-process. These are my attempts to track with your thought and see where it might overlap with my own current explorations. I’d be curious to know where I’ve landed close to your intention, and where I may have wandered a bit too far afield.
What I hear you saying is that focus (which is often treated as a skill or a fixed capacity) is more accurately a layered, relational, and emotionally mediated process. It's shaped not just by attention, but by how we relate to suffering, to control, and to the desire to bypass or mask difficult experiences. If this is the core of your message, all I can say is... Yes! I couldn't agree more.
You also offer a nuanced distinction between:
1. Natural focus (relaxed, emergent, unforced)
2. Masterful focus (intended, aware, cyclical)
3. Un-masterful focus (divided, reactive, control-seeking)
I was especially fascinated by the idea that many breakdowns in attention arise from emotional "binds" (where suffering is masked or avoided). And that these binds (like Wounded Pride, Obscurity, Repressed Spirit, etc.) subtly hijack focus and turn it toward self-protection rather than presence. Your language of “not ready / not set / no go” highlights something important for me: the inner posture of resistance that masquerades as busyness or distraction. I have often experienced the felt sense of that, and identify it as a loss of agency via automation or fragmentation.
Regarding your treatment of “masking,” as an unavoidable perceptual filter... I found this quite intriguing. What I read from that is that we don’t always see things as they are, but rather as we are able (or willing) to see them. In that sense, focus is always already interpretive, and masking becomes both a protection and a limitation. I’d love to know if I’m reading that as you intended.
Your emphasis on readiness to sense suffering as a prerequisite for depth, creativity, and grace echoes so much of what I’ve been thinking about in my own writings. Where I explore attention as the fragile access point to volition and meaningful participation, your framework seems to add a powerful interior dimension: that we must be willing to be with what is difficult in order to sustain authentic focus at all. I hope I have that right, as I love that framing.
I also deeply appreciate the way you challenge the cultural glorification of “rational, controlled” attention and instead point toward something more fluid and integrative. A focus that can move through layers (self, others, influence, reality) and doesn't fracture under emotional weight, but metabolizes it. That feels like a powerful invitation. I’d be curious to hear more about what you see as the practices (or inner postures) that might help sustain this integrative form of attention over time. I'm curious both at the individual level, and if you think there is a way to adjust this collectively (as a human species), especially with the current state of cultural and systemic attention landscapes.
Again, these are my reflections as a reader. I'm putting it through a lens of interpretation; however, I'm not sure if I hit the mark entirely. I’m grateful for the rigor and nuance you’ve brought to this, and I’d love to know where you feel this interpretation lands or misses.
Thank you again for creating this. It reminds me of a mandala. Something meant to be circled around and not decoded too quickly. I’ll keep circling. :)