Focus

[mrissa]

I said there'd be a more substantive entry later; I suppose I didn't specify later today. Which is good, because this probably won't be it. I've had a good day in many details -- lunch, dinner, time with markgritter vegetating on the couch, making a pan of brownies -- but I've also had some really intense dizzy spells. Still, dizzy spells beats dizzy days any time.

For a long time, I've been meaning to say that I think focus can be overrated. We're a culture of specialists. "That's not my field" is way too many people's mantra. I sometimes joke (half-joke, at least) that I write spec fic so I never again have to answer the question, "What on earth could you possibly want to know that for?" A really alarming range of stuff can be classified as, "Maybe for a story sometime." And I love that. It's a really good thing. It's good for me internally, and I think it's also good to have people around who can do that.

But part of my being able to say this is that focus has never been a long-term problem for me. I've never had difficulty settling in and doing one thing -- in this case writing -- long enough for it to do some good. For awhile I was able to split hyperfocus into physics, writing, and the broad category of "important people in my life"; I had to drop physics, but there wasn't really any question that it was the right choice for me, either at the time or in retrospect.

Still, every once in awhile I think it might be appealing to have just one project at a time. Just one thing on my mind. Just one set of characters clamoring to have their say. Not having frogs leaping over dinosaur bones and smack into the face of sea giantesses.

It's not going to happen, though, so I might as well enjoy watching them jump.

Comments

[valancy.livejournal.com]

Dizzy days are greatly lame. glad to hear it's at least reduced to dizzy spells!

[hilarymoonmurph.livejournal.com]

For a long time, I've been meaning to say that I think focus can be overrated. We're a culture of specialists. "That's not my field" is way too many people's mantra. I sometimes joke (half-joke, at least) that I write spec fic so I never again have to answer the question, "What on earth could you possibly want to know that for?" A really alarming range of stuff can be classified as, "Maybe for a story sometime." And I love that. It's a really good thing. It's good for me internally, and I think it's also good to have people around who can do that.

That's one of the things that I love about being a librarian... Finding out weird stuff and new ideas.

Glad to hear you are getting better. Hang in there, Mris.

Hmm

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, you've got a triple dose of it with writing and librarian-ing and parenting!

[columbina.livejournal.com]

Dizzy spells are definitely quantitatively better than dizzy days.

I have had to make a virtue of a vice, as far as focus is concerned. I try to sell it as being a man-of-all-work and knowing a little bit about everything; I had to claim "talented generalist" self-defensively, and hope no one would notice the inability to sit still and think about anything for too long (with the possible exception of writing, and that only when the wind is north-northwest and hawks are easily distinguished from handsaws).

The surprising thing - surprising to me, since I agree that the world overrates specialization - is that there are definitely employment niches where people like me are valuable and desired. Urgently desired, sometimes. They just take a lot of finding.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

A big part of the problem is that our culture tends to highly value visible success and to define success as being in the top tier of any given activity. And the "best" at any given activity tend to be the specialists, precisely because of that focus. Someone who doesn't specialize tends to be seen as someone who isn't at least trying to be the best at something, which means they aren't "pursuing excellence," which means they're wasting their time.

I think this is part of the devaluation of homemaking--it's not just that women have mostly been doing that work, though that's certainly a big part of it, but because it's a generalist occupation. Hmm. So is being a librarian--and along with management, subject specialist positions have historically been filled disproportionately by men. So is being a teacher--and historically, the more narrowly focused a class is, the more likely the teacher is to be a man. (Elementary school compared to middle school compared to high school compared to college...) So is being a nurse--and men have historically been more likely to be doctors, and women doctors have historically more often ended up in more generalist positions like family practice. Hmm.

That's part of my vocational uncertainties, actually, the specialist vs. generalist thing. I fully affirm that what librarians and ministers do is valuable, but deep in my irrational core consciousness there's the idea that it's a waste for me not to specialize in something and "make a real difference," unless I can point to something flashy like, say, a new library building or a sweeping legislative initiative or something.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

Speak of the devil: Amanda at Pandagon explicitly takes the "waste" position (http://pandagon.net/2006/06/21/half-of-children-are-daughters/).

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Sigh.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

A corollary to that is that a lot of people think things aren't worth doing unless you can do them well. And so no one sings unless they're of near-professional quality, and people are scared to try sports because they might suck. Handicrafts may well be the last bastion of mediocrity, where people realize that it will take a long time to get good but that the activity can still be enjoyable.

I strongly believe that for a lot of activities, good enough really *is* good enough; maybe the trick is to understand which ones. I don't want a "good enough" brain surgeon but I'd rather be represented by a Congresscritter who knows a little about a lot of things - and knows how to find out more - than by one whose got deep expertise in only a narrow field.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

Especially when that field is ho to best get around the campaign finance laws.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

"How" even.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think I've had something of a mental shift in regards to my fiction, away from thinking of any one thing as flashy. I mean, in some regards I want them all to be flashy, the book that someone rereads obsessively, the short story that makes their whole world ring like a bell. But in other regards, it's much healthier for me to want to sell a bunch of interesting short stories on a bunch of interesting topics to a bunch of interesting places than to fixate on THAT ONE MARKET taking THAT ONE STORY. Does it mean that each story shouldn't be as good as I can make it? Of course not. But it's not a bad thing to tell more than one story, or at least to tell a story more than one way.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Generalists are undervalued in our society. Not without reason, mind you, but they are undervalued.

B

Dizzy question

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

When you have your spells are they accompanied by nausea or a pressure headache? Like the world's worst hangover? I've had two episodes like that and they happen randomly and suddenly. Sort of looking for anyone else who has had a similar thing.

Re: Dizzy question

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Luckily, as the spell lasted two weeks before letting up for awhile, I haven't had nausea with them this time. Sure hope they figure it out for you, though.