Rhythms of Focus

This episode focuses on the struggle of the blank page. How it can seem like a hack to use pre-existing content to spring us forward to a starting point that isn't "nothing."

But it can also build limitations to create something new and exciting when boxing ourselves in with the ideas of our previous work, past notes, or even AI. What seems like a great way to jump ahead can turn into a confusing mess that feels like it's missing your own voice.

The blank page is terrifying because it mirrors self-doubt, distraction, and exhaustion. Yet prematurely searching outside oneself can narrow thinking, block new paths, and reduce creation to what already exists.

Vitality in art comes from discovery and play—a resonance between self and world—rather than repeating what’s been done. Research and AI can be useful, but the unique seed of an idea must begin from within. Even the worst rough drafts are a necessary fertilizer for growth through revision.

We end with a piece called "Where Did the Table Go?"

##Transcript

All right, I gotta write this thing. I gotta make this thing. How can I make this thing with as little time as possible? Okay, maybe I'll ask AI. Okay. I look through my past notes, I'll research what I've already done. Minutes go by. Oh, what is this? What am I, I can't, no, this doesn't make sense. Hours go by. This is a mess.

We all have things we need to create the work, the repeated work, the blank page. There's schools of thought around writing, for instance, that promise never having to work from the blank page.

We can dive into our past notes nicely cultivated, and pull out some inspiration. Or perhaps we have a project we can pull up the mighty internet or the promises of AI to outline the work for us. But then something can feel missing.

What is that? What's missing is us, the creative self. Why would we run from that? But there's some reason. That blank page can be terrifying. It holds up this mirror that says what you think you're creative? Do you think you know what you're talking about? Do you know how many other people know more than you about whatever it is you think you're talking about?

Every comment pummels us as we sit further and further back into the chair, if we can even manage to stay there. A wandering mind, ADHD or beyond can certainly find reason to run here. Distraction, exhaustion, collapse all nipping at our heels, if they haven't gotten us already.

One of our methods of relieving that tension is in the search for what's come before. Un-blank, the page.

But there's so many troubles that can come from other paths of premature search. If we look at existing research our mind is pulled to what exists. If we look at past notes, we might block new paths. If we ask AI, we really only see the average of what already exists.

Whatever it is, we lose the seed of discovery in creation and it is in discovery where we find vitality. When I play a piece of music that I've played a hundred times before without variation, there's no feeling in it. It gives both me and the audience a headache.

When I can play with a sense of finding something new, well, now we're talking. That sense of vitality comes through in the notes. That's what we're listening for. That's what feeds back on itself.

But discovery itself is only an artifact. Its vitality comes from play. Something deep within a connection and exploration of self and world reacting, but guiding. A creative building sense of fulfillment, meaning, and more. In other words, discovery is a resonance between world and self building from within.

It's not to say that research, previous writings or even AI should not be consulted. On the contrary, any one of these can be powerful themselves, bulging with their own caches of knowledge and more.

But the seed of an idea, a sentence, a blurry vision from within is where it all begins. While a conceived egg is tiny, it is so powerfully unique unto itself. It can gather whatever it can from womb to world, from that epicenter, all the while remaining powerfully unique unto itself.

So for a moment, it's useful to hold that tension of the blank page and see what comes to mind. Of course, you might be worried, what if it's terrible? What if there's nothing unique? What if I've got nothing to offer?

In the wonderful words of Earnest Hemingway, "The first draft of anything is shit." And what I love about that phrase is the dual meaning. The first draft is no good for consumption. Whatever is, there is a sketch, a start, maybe even ugly.

But shit is also a fertilizer. It's what gives the ground the nutrients of growth. We need it to be there for the second and third drafts and beyond where matters flower and bloom.

We visit and revisit building and practicing facing the blank page to write again. Somewhere something is written, but beyond something changes within ourselves, as we practice, we create ourselves. And maybe that's even scarier. That's the pause for bravery. But when we can. We can start from within and go from there, because that's where it's alive.

Titles for music seems silly when I realize I've created a new piece. I tend to sit in silence for a moment after playing it, and I wait until some title comes to mind. Sometimes it makes sense, though many times it doesn't, and I keep crafting it. This is part of the art itself, I suppose. So while I had a previous piece called, "Where Did the Table Go?", well, this one perhaps, surprisingly, came to mind as I think I found the table. I hope you enjoy it.

Mentioned in this episode:

Waves of Focus YouTube Series

Look out for new episodes of the new Waves of Focus YouTube series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpQS5q6yvRw

I am delighted to be joined by speaking coach and producer Rachel Hanfling, who has coached everyone from shy speakers to Fortune 500 leaders to help them find their authentic voice.

In fact, she was instrumental in helping me shape my course, “Being Productive,” and the ADHD-focused adaptation that came after. We discuss how people with wandering minds often struggle to express ourselves under pressure and how effective speaking is a learnable skill requiring guided practice, not an innate trait.

We discuss communication with a focus on the wandering mind. Hanfling shares how the foundation of helping anyone sound like the best version of themselves, starts with understanding both the audience’s needs and the speaker’s intent. We also get into using nonverbal elements of communication like eye contact, body language, voice, and energy.

You can learn more about Rachel Hanfling at her website. And if you're interested in learning the tools to find your authentic voice, make sure to check out her upcoming course, Own the Power of Your Story.

Mentioned in this episode:

Waves of Focus YouTube Series

Look out for new episodes of the new Waves of Focus YouTube series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpQS5q6yvRw

This episode explores the concept of "doing nothing", which, ironically, is still an act of doing "something." In fact, “doing nothing” is a valuable practice where thoughts wander, tensions release, and ideas form.

When you think about the usefulness of empty space in an uncluttered closet you can draw parallels to the clutter of our own minds.

We continue questioning what “nothing” really means. A teenagers’ common response to what they've been doing, “nothing,” reveals that phone time, games, and chatting still contain connection, creativity, humor, and art.

Life is hectic and there is always something to do, which may make "doing nothing" one of the most important parts of your day.

The episode ends with an extended piece in C-major titled “Wind at Play.”

Transcript:

Whether returning from vacation, waking from a nap, or riding a single deep breath's trailing exhale -- energy flows, tensions release, and ideas form from what seemed to be nothing.

Doing nothing can of course be a good thing. Maybe it's a trope by now. But let's see where we can run with that trope.

There are parallels of practicality to nothing.

A closet, for example, when overfilled makes getting to things difficult. What we can get to is either wrinkled or just in front. Meanwhile, when there's empty space, getting to what we want becomes much easier.

There must be a parallel to engaging our lives, work, and play.

Turning to what may be our resident experts, teenagers, we hear with rare exception, in response to what they've done with their day,

But nothing cannot simply be staring at a wall. Even sleep has active components.

So I ask,

"I'm on my phone," "playing games," "talking to friends,"...

Asking further eventually reveals worlds of connection, creativity, music, art, humor, and more.

So even nothing is something.

Still, what then is "nothing"?

Is it a sense of release from responsibility? A responsibility to others? from ourselves? Could anything beyond responsibility be just one of a myriad species of Nothing?

Such a practice must be a rhythm of structure and a lack thereof. Some even find it useful to schedule unstructured time, particularly as the weights of adulting accrue.

But then, how much is too much Nothing?

Is it when we feel good and ready to do Something? Is it when the world demands Something from us? Is it only when we parent ourselves through a proxy of lists, calendars, and timers to say,

Personally, I add "leisure" (perhaps another word for "Nothing"?) as a deliberate part of my daily visits. (See below) That Nothing may last a few minutes or hours. But once a day, I must acknowledge to myself, this is my time.

Is that it then? Is Nothing when I have the sense that I own this moment of time?

Whatever it is, when I cannot make it to Nothing, my day feels crowded, strained, or perhaps better said, unhealthy.

Nothing, in this way, is both a vital resource and a useful measure. Somewhere, I need my daily dose of Vitamin Nothing.

• Kourosh

Mentioned in this episode:

Waves of Focus YouTube Series

Look out for new episodes of the new Waves of Focus YouTube series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpQS5q6yvRw

Growing up in the 1980s, heavy metal hairbands were rock gods looked up to by kids and adults alike. While studying piano and awkwardly attempting early compositions, I wanted to hurry and get to the "rocking out" part of my musical prowess, just like the bands I admired so much.

It's so easy to fixate on an immediate reward that you forget practice is what helps us climb the ladder to success. It takes us to another level of connecting with ourselves and with our art.

Improvisation still depends on structure. It's the balance of chaos and structure that allows you to create your own "voice" that becomes authentically you. Mastery comes from loving the craft itself.

We end with an improvised piece in C minor called “A Flavor of Slop.”

Ah, the 80s Growing up in the eighties, Friday night music videos, then MTV, these were the big things I'd get so excited to see. Aha, Billy Idol, Michael Jackson, Madonna, the rest. Big hair metal was amazing. Guns and Roses was still underground. Metallica was counterculture.

Practicing my scales, arpeggios, playing green sleeves on the piano with my teacher. I drift off to wonder how do these people, how do these musicians make the music they do?

It seems so far off from whatever it is I'm doing. I try to make up this, that, or the other. My first composition was something of a series of notes running up and down a scale and some key that I made sure to include sharps and flats, just to make sure it was complex enough.

Eagerly I'd show it off to my piano teacher and she patiently, kindly, maybe even sincerely said something along the lines of, "That's nice," followed by a "Now, let's get back to work." And in my mind, but, but I'm not rocking out like Poison yet.

We're so accustomed to reward. The end goal, the vision of whatever we think will bring us joy, happiness, if not some unconscious fantasy of immortality. And we see it in our psychology with Skinner who linked stimulus and reward. We push it in our science and medicine when we implicitly say that the only thing that matters is what can be measured.

We say it in our day-to-day lives when we believe that we only need that hack or trick to make something work. We do it to ourselves when we aim for a score in that language app, rather than using the app to connect with our own voice within.

The trope of focus on a journey over its reward persists as a trope because we so often don't live it.

Students often wonder about the WAVES approach to dealing with an ADHD mind. But it's not about "dealing with", it's practicing. We're practicing ADHD.

Well, what good is that? Well, when practicing the piano, we do eventually find a place of ease within the notes, we discover a voice.

Regularly I hear others tell me that they can instantly recognize my style of playing. It's not that I deliberately sought that out. I got there by practicing the fundamentals. The voice came of its own accord.

Over time whatever unique bubble I represent in the current wave of existence manifests on its own. It's just the way it happens. My job is to be aware and remove impediments where I can regularly over time. It's also known as practice.

Not only that, but the thing is I enjoy it. I enjoy that process. I enjoy the engagement of challenge in the small and large, finding a possible trailhead of mastery where I can.

Feeding the play that comes with that, that resonates with the sense of meaning within and often with others. The same thing happens when we practice our way of being.

ADHD for example, is this flow through a thin passage of the now. Strong and powerful, or stumbling and turbulent. It's like air within a flute, bow across a string, a tap on a drum

We don't manage ADHD, we practice it. And in so doing, we can find our strength and power, and more importantly, our own voice.

When hearing the simple ease of Frank Sinatra's, almost spoken, but clearly sung tunes, and we watched the smooth moves of Michael Jackson's feet.

When we know those moments of care, calm, play, and mastery, all hidden in that gentle, barely perceptible smile of a craftsperson at work, we know that they're in love with the craft, the practice itself. And when we bring that joy to the moment's challenge, we bring that self into the work.

The funny thing about improvisation is that it rests on structure. Without structure, we'd only have a mess. As I say, there's something interesting that does seem to happen at this interface between chaos and structure.

Whatever systems we build have to include the nature of our wandering, that flow of thought, that delight in play. Otherwise, we ourselves are not there. We're simply acting as some automaton.

So much of those, "I don't wanna" feelings are about rebelling against being that automaton. When we approach structure, when we practice. When we look at the study of others, their systems, their views of the world. There can be something powerful about pausing, and aligning this with our own voice, with our own moment of challenge, which then lets us take in whatever it is we're studying to grow our own voice.

The following piece is an improvised work, but it rests in a very clear structure of C minor, a particular set of notes. And as a home of C, that root note and the notes and the structures of the notes themselves all form something.

But all of those notes, all of those ideas, all of the ways this sonic building has come to be over the eons, if you will, has been brought in into that studied place in order to become play, which I hope you can hear between the notes.

The following piece, it has a silly name, it's called "A Flavor of Slop". I like that name. It's in C Minor, as I mentioned, and I hope you enjoy it.

Mentioned in this episode:

Waves of Focus YouTube Series

Look out for new episodes of the new Waves of Focus YouTube series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpQS5q6yvRw

When building a thing to bring out to the world, we face “marketing.” Some of us who have had to put this on their to-do list may well have had a similar response to me, which is a rather complex mess of emotions perhaps summarized by:

The whole enterprise can touch off feelings of selfishness, manipulation, and more. Here’s a thing. Gimme money.

Some time ago, I learned of Billy Broas’ work in marketing, joined a course he’d put together, and was duly impressed by how he focused on honoring a person’s agency, that ability for a person to decide for themselves.

As agency is truly the centerpiece of the work I do, whether as a therapist or as a productivity talking head, I invited Billy onto the Rhythms of Focus.

In this episode, Rhythms of Focus S01 Episode 52 - Agency, Story, And Symbols with Guest Billy Broas, we wander this way and that, true to the name of the show.

We get into the ideas of:

• Marketing as argument
• People’s inherent dignity in decision-making
• The importance of story, and how it is is about consciousness, attention, and meaning, not just chronology.
• and much more

I hope you give it a listen and let me know what you think!

You can also learn more about Billy at his website, ​BillyBroas.com

Check out Billy's book, Simple Marketing for Smart People

And find his manifesto at marketingisanargument.com

Chapters:

[00:01:24] Introduction

[00:03:35] The Problem with Manipulative Marketing

[00:06:29] Humans as Machines — The Reductionist View

[00:09:14] Ontology, Dignity, and a Different Starting Point

[00:14:10] Story, Meaning, and the Limits of Facts

[00:15:11] Heaven, Earth, and the Architecture of Meaning

[00:23:33] The Masculine, the Feminine, and Creative Wandering

[00:25:15] Purpose, Worship, and What We Sacrifice To

[00:28:24] Pausing, Routine, and the Practice of Reflection

[00:34:02] The Hero's Journey and the Chiasmus

[00:37:10] Thoughts as Messengers, Not Masters

[00:39:41] Artificial Scarcity and the Theft of Agency

[00:40:51] Philosophy Over Psychology — Enhancing vs. Removing Agency

[00:45:32] Trust, Love, and the Voluntary Transaction

[00:47:54] Where to Find Billy

Mentioned in this episode:

Waves of Focus YouTube Series

Look out for new episodes of the new Waves of Focus YouTube series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpQS5q6yvRw

Telling ourselves “I should just do that thing” rarely motivates action and instead can lead to self-judgment.

The word “just” can be an unconscious way to trivialize the emotional difficulty of starting the work we have been avoiding. "Just" becomes the gatekeeper of procrastination that protects us from feared feelings while costing self-esteem.

By noticing and isolating “just,” we can recognize the emotional “wall” it hides and reframe it as an opportunity to explore what the task evokes—fear of incapability, resentment of others’ demands, boredom, or a sense of wasting life — so we can practice becoming able, reconsider responsibilities, and renegotiate agreements with ourselves and others.

We end the episode with a piano piece titled “Running on the Sun.”

How often have you tried to start something you've been avoiding by saying:

Unfortunately, the phrase rarely, if ever, gets us moving. Instead, we can slump into a pile and call ourselves lazy.

While trying to get ourselves to work, we've also introduced this insidious culprit - the word “Just”.

The word "Just" so readily slips into our speech. It’s as if we’re trying to say that the work, whatever work we are avoiding, is easy. Once we start, we'll be moving.

Using the word “Just” is often an unconscious attempt to trivialize the emotions of the work or at least those that surround starting it.

It’s not easy. We know it when we hit a wall. But since the word is so often unconsciously invoked, we don’t see the wall.

"Just" is a gatekeeper. By ignoring the word “Just”, we allow it to keep us in the world we know, protecting us from dreaded feelings, albeit at the cost of self-esteem. It's the sentinel of procrastination, guarding us from actually examining any ghosts of negative emotions we fear lurk within the work.

Since we don’t know what is “just” keeping us from doing it, a sense of incapability and inferiority creeps in, but at least we’ve saved ourselves from the dreaded unknown of the work.

"Just" is a guardian of the First Act, protecting us from some worrying feeling but also keeping us from the solutions we may seek, much like any form of procrastination.

But when we see and know its magic, we can dispel it. Now, when we see the word “Just”, we can see the wall, often this puzzle of emotion standing between us and the thing to do.

By singling out the word “Just” in the sentence, we can now reframe it as a place for exploration. “What are the feelings of this work?” Better yet, “What is it about that thing that conjures these feelings?”

In sitting with the work and allowing ourselves this sense it can appear, we might start wondering, “If I tried, would my inability reveal itself? By doing this, am I just bowing down to someone else’s whims? Would I expose myself to boredom, this sense of wasting life?”

In acknowledging these sensations more directly, we can start finding where we feel unable and begin practicing to become able.

We can consider how we have taken on responsibilities and where our decisions were in that process. And we can then face the fears in renegotiating agreements and more. Agreements with ourselves, and with others.

None of these are simple questions to answer, but starting tells "Just" to step aside so we may enter Act II.

Today's piece is "Running on the Sun." I don't know why anybody would ever want to run on the sun, it seems mighty painful. The gravity would be too much at least. The floor would be pretty hot. Just all around inhospitable.

Nevertheless, such is the title of the piece. I hope you enjoy it.

For more, visit and subscribe at rhythmsoffocus.com.

Hashtags

#adhd #adhdtools #neurodivergent #attentiondeficit #wanderingminds

Mentioned in this episode:

Waves of Focus YouTube Series

Look out for new episodes of the new Waves of Focus YouTube series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpQS5q6yvRw

Many of us with ADHD and wandering minds have been told our motivation problems are mainly about dopamine dependence. This has led to numerous activities and products built to "gamify" motivation and productivity.

But trying to “game” oneself with reward apps, points, quests, races, or even caffeine often works only briefly because it goes against what is true for ourselves.

What makes video games engaging is not flashy stimuli, but a flowing progression of challenges calibrated to be neither too hard nor too boring, where enjoyment comes from the activity itself.

Motivation can come from pausing with existing frustration and tension, asking what feels boring or irritating, then simplifying, shrinking, or slowing tasks to gently reduce tension and “titrate” challenge. Then, dopamine becomes an afterthought.

We end with one of my oldest and ever-evolving compositions, “Aging,” written in C minor.

Transcript:

The idea of dopamine dependence, or maybe dopamine starvation, is often a suspect in the world of ADHD and wandering minds.

The phrase is supported by this idea of an "Interest-based" nervous system - this idea that has somehow been interpreted to mean that we can only do things that we have some a priori interest in, effectively arguing for a lack of free will.

And so, some of us look for ways that we can "game" ourselves. Maybe we consider ways to set up a points system for which chores are worth something. Maybe we turn our to-do list into a set of quests with levels, loot, and the like.

Or how about "how fast can I clear this Inbox?" reminding me of trying to get a kid to tie their shoes in the morning by asking them to race out the door.

Maybe we even use a chemical like coffee after the work report is done, quite literally trying to get a flush of dopamine after doing something that we'd otherwise avoid.

Look, if any of these work for you, great. But I believe, more often than not, it'll work once or a few times, and then some part of us, starts to say "no."

Why? Because we have been dishonest with ourselves.

Any system of work worth its salt, requires honesty with ourselves.

Part of the problem is in how we interpret the word "game" itself.

We look at video games, for instance, as this poster child of dopamine dependence. Things flash and make noises on a screen, beaming photons into our eyes, jiggling air molecules at our eardreams, sending signals into some secret lairs in our brain, a mesolimbic pathway of the ventral tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, working its way into the dorsal striatum.

Whatever the terminology, the more seemingly scientific, the more it becomes a metaphor for whatever lies beyond our control. We may as well imagine some evil villain with a smirk and a lab suit, standing in our brains, laughing as they pull the levers for the things that make us do wrong.

"Gaming" in this context is a word that seems to be interpreted as, maybe I can trick that guy into pulling the levers at the times that I want, by attaching something that already makes the dopamine flow with the thing that doesn't.

But gaming, video gaming, is very much not about this process at all.

Things that go blip and bloop do not excite us. Or maybe they do briefly, but then that fades off all easily, its novelty spent.

What excites us is a flow of moving from one challenge to the next. At first we see something that somehow fits some window of not too difficult, not too boring, and maybe even completable.

We nudge forward, stomping on that one bad guy. And then we see some next window of challenge, maybe bringing some of what we've just accomplished with us.

One at a time, and then blending into each other, like picture frames across old-school film, we get into it, stomping, swinging, dashing, grooving, ready to take on more.

What began as a trickle became a river.

Whatever it is, we are enjoying the thing for the thing itself. We haven't skirted meaning. We haven't cheated ourselves.

Beyond games, we can do this with any type of play or work, enjoyed or not.

The path in is through the frustration, the tension, the emotion that already exists, not by avoiding it.

If we can pause with that sensation, not force ourselves through or hide from it, we can then ask, "what is boring, frustrating, irritating about this?"

And then, simplify, or maybe shrink things down, or slow down and try to render some of that tension into ease. Gently, - as we do.

And then with doing so, we then start finding the real levers that can adjust the challenge within ourselves - tuning into where we are. We can adjust those levers for ourselves.

Once we learn how to titrate a challenge for ourselves, dopamine is an afterthought. The word itself experienced distant as it always has been.

Sometimes we can even transform an experience from frustrating to enjoyed, even bridging the “why can’t I just start because I know I’ll be ok once I’m there?”

We bridge that into beginning with an honoring of the emotions that make up who we are now, rather than treating ourselves as if we don't know better.

#ADHD #WanderingMinds #ADHDandMotivation #Neurodivergent

Mentioned in this episode:

Waves of Focus YouTube Series

Look out for new episodes of the new Waves of Focus YouTube series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpQS5q6yvRw

For those of us moving through life with ADHD or wandering minds, “SMART Goals” can act as too rigid a process. One that may impede the value of the end results.

These so-called “SMART Goals” can actually feel dehumanizing, as if something measurable and specific were given more weight than something that might allow your wonder and creativity to flow even more freely.

Premature goals can be weaponized by workplaces, while much of what matters in creativity has little to do with relevance, specificity, and time.

Creative work, meaningful work, is often inherently blurry. There is an act of discovery when we allow our minds the freedom to ask questions, to play, and to pause and reflect.

Transcript:

Word of warning, today's episode is one of my crankier ones.

You may have heard of the so-called "SMART Goals". Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Some employers even demand them in their relationships with you.

But I find SMART goals to be anything but smart.

When it comes to goals, we often hear something along the lines of:

Ugh.

Does anyone else find this to be similar to "Think of a number. Now think of a bigger number"? I guess we're supposed to keep doing this until we're all wearing Infinity Gauntlets or something.

Then we are supposed to write them down, perhaps using the obnoxiously titled "SMART" mnemonic to make them Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.

Perhaps a boon for the ever de-humanizing forces of parasitic corporations, I have some concerns about these so-called "smart" goals:

• Premature specificity can lead to a rigidity that can shatter the goal, the individual, as well as injure nearby innocent bystanders. (See also every story villain.)
• Not everything that can be measured matters. In fact, I'd argue that most that matters cannot be measured.
• How do I know what's achievable until I'm there?
• How do I know what's relevant until I explore?
• And for those of us with wandering minds, Lord help us with the clearly implied use of clock time rather than that of self time. (See also Clock time vs Self time)

What goes horribly missed is the over-privileging of the written word, and the under-privileging of the wordless experience born in the seemingly menial but utterly vital, tiny world of a single visit.

Experience is largely a wordless place.

Much of the Now cannot be translated into words. As much as I love playing with words, they are hardly more than emissaries, often beaten and beleaguered when sent on meaningless missions.

We discover what we are creating in the act of creating it. What we once thought was clear and concrete, becomes obviously not as we are there, in the Now.

We learn what we can learn in the act of learning it.

Any creative vision will be, by definition, blurry in one sense or another. We don't know the time it would take. We don't know the steps there. We don't even know what it will look in the end.

Envisioning that blurriness, sensing a direction, we wordlessly feel the tensions and decide from there how to shape and shift the moment's sails.

When we focus on the tiny, we often unlock the large.

Catching a tiny turn of phrase in a client's concerns, I ask,

From here, new worlds may open.

What they once stated as a goal perhaps of therapy even is now revealed as only an attempt to further suppress an important part of themselves. "Make me not angry" - but what if there is reason for the anger, a reason you hadn't considered? "Make me not worried" - what if the worry is doing something for you? What do we do with that? Make me do my work - What if doing your work is a bad idea.

I'd rather not collude in their collapse.

Working on the second movement of Beethoven's Sonata 14, I stumble here and there, a bit at the beginning, a bit at the end, and a bunch in the middle.

Diving into a single measure, slowing it down, feeling for the basic nature of the single notes involved, I gently rework a small knot in the fabric.

Why here? Why now? I don't know.

But something interesting happens in that discovery in the tiny, a turn of phrase, I realize my goal was wrong as the whole piece begin to flow different from this tiny place of practice.

Of course there is utility to thinking of large matters.

Of course we can revisit where we thought we were going to make adjustments.

Of course it is useful to think of small steps on the way there.

But premature goals can be weaponized - forced, forming a procrustean bed of words, twisted into submission. Have you done the thing by now? Why haven't you done the thing? Update the ticket. Say where you were, say where you'll be, convince me.

Returns and revisions take time, a time easily burdened upon our future selves.

I wonder if the world beyond goals is one far more vast and rich than they'd have us believe.

• Kourosh

PS What do I see myself doing in 5 years? Probably eating a sandwich or something.

PPS I'm still cranky.

Mentioned in this episode:

Waves of Focus YouTube Series

Look out for new episodes of the new Waves of Focus YouTube series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpQS5q6yvRw

This episode discusses the concept of willpower, particularly in relation to the struggles of individuals with ADHD.

We question the traditional notion of willpower as merely doing, or not doing, something despite our internal emotional opposition.

We explore how creating supportive environments and pausing enables wandering minds to make better choices and engage in meaningful activities.

We discuss:

• What defines willpower
• Willpower versus the wave of emotions
• The power of holding tension
• Supporting our needs with pauses

We conclude with a piano improvisation piece called 'On a Dare'.

For more, subscribe and visit rhythmsoffocus.com

Willpower. What a troublesome word. Those with ADHD in particular supposedly don't have enough. Fight more, do more, do the thing you don't want to do. But what is this willpower thing anyway?

Have you ever had a cut and then knew, while it was healing, that it was important not to pick at it. But there was some part of you that just felt like, "Hmm, I just gotta scratch it,"

And when you hold back, and you just keep holding back, is that willpower?

Maybe we can define willpower as the ability to deliberately do, or not do something, despite an unaccommodating, if not deeply opposed, emotional world that surrounds it.

But is that really the focus? To do things we don't want or not do things we do want?

The emotional world, is a swirling world.

At times chaotic, at times peaceful, sometimes vengeful. Throwing one wave after another at us.

Is it a lack of willpower to fail to stand against some typhoon of emotion? I think there's something here, some tension.

When going with the flow, we follow some line of least resistance, a summed vector of internal fields of boat floating wherever the sea of emotion takes us in this moment.

But we know that it's important to occasionally hold back.

When we're having a bad day and someone asks us for one more thing, we hold a certain tension to not respond.

When meditating and trying to hold onto awareness itself. We hold a tension.

When we try to understand, build, create, maybe hold two ideas in mind simultaneously. Once again, there's this tension that we're holding onto.

But holding that tension seems about as possible as chronically holding a 50 pound weight in the air. At some point we lose it. Consciousness being the way it is.

We don't even recognize that we've lost it. I dunno about you, but, even though I've meditated for many years, there's still plenty of times that I wonder, wait, where did I go?

Pushing ourselves through a difficult task can be similar. Somehow we lose track, exhausted. There's something that happens when we can hold tension.

We discover, if not create, options. We have this option to place ourselves on alternate paths. We realize that there's more than just the path of least resistance.

And as such, we can create more accommodating situations, make better choices. We can even create supports for ourselves.

When practicing on the piano and only going with the flow, I engage in some empty form of play. Playing the same piece I know all too well, doing the same licks over and over.

But in that pause I see other paths. This I know, this I don't. Here's a book that I can look at. Here's an idea and an area to study. How would I even do that? Options we did not have before begin to form.

And from here, we can seek the windows of challenge within the difficult. We can simplify things, shrink them down, slow them down. Whether in piano or in therapy, or in hobby or work, whether habit or craft.

To resolve, if not dissolve, the difficult into the newly easy. Mind can discover paths of tension to now release.

In other words, what we seek is not necessarily more willpower, some finite resource if there ever was one. Instead, we look to practice using our limited reserves to pause.

To pause for leaving that itch unscratched, to decide what we can to support ourselves — we place ourselves in situations showing up to a visit.

We create our environments to support us, reducing our distractions so that we can find ways we can support ourselves, so we don't need to hold ourselves back so much. And that way we can engage with our nature of curiosity, if not grace.

The following piece is called, “On a Dare.” It's an improvisation. It'll never be played again. I hope you enjoy it.

Mentioned in this episode:

Waves of Focus YouTube Series

Look out for new episodes of the new Waves of Focus YouTube series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpQS5q6yvRw

This week we explore how to “find your voice,” when it feels as though everything has been done before. How do you create something to put you on par with masters like Michael Jordan, Miles Davis, and Van Gogh, who are instantly recognizable?

Finding one’s voice isn’t mysterious alchemy but a complex process of tapping into one’s unique, often blurry stream of thoughts.

Using Richard Feynman as an example of distinctive thinking, Dr. Kourosh Dini describes a practical method through music: improvising, then pausing to review recordings, identifying structures and connections, and consciously internalizing what has emerged unconsciously.

This deliberate cycle of play, study, and reflection builds a tangible conduit to deeper self and clearer communication.

We close the episode with an evolving piano piece, “Alight,” in F minor, 3/4 time.

How do I create something new, something unique? How do I not sound like everyone else? Whether writing a piece of music, searching for a unique perspective at work, or even trying to write an interesting newsletter, it can be easy to fall into a sense that it's all been done before.

The common advice is to use your own unique perspective. In other words, find your voice. Great, but how?

Finding our voice is never simple. But we see it in the masters of any field. Watch a video of Michael Jordan playing basketball. You'll see no one plays like him.

You'll listen to Miles Davis and you know it's Miles Davis. You see a painting by Van Gogh, and you know it's Van Gogh.

Even when we copy them, emulate them, well it all came from that original voice.

You might think it's a matter of art, some secret alchemy bestowed on the blessed few that lets somebody create from some hidden spirit within. Well, if so, how do we tap into that world?

That voice, whatever it is within us, can be rather complex, and there are likely many paths to fostering and caring for that voice.

Richard Feynman, this brilliant quantum physicist who beyond his understanding of subatomic particles, had a wonderfully quirky approach to life and learning. He would often share how he thought.

I hear how he thinks and I hear a reflection of my own thoughts, my own deepest thoughts, not because I know much of anything about quantum physics, but because of the blur of ideas that can come to mind.

The process of organizing that and the like, and it's not at all simple, but the unique nature of thought, tapping into that, I believe this is where we find our voice.

Here is the link to Richard Feynman's "Fun to Imagine" talk.

ADHD, wandering minds, I believe we often share this sense of blurring rapid fire thought. This cauldron of the unconscious is what we often look at, whether we're saying we have a superpower or we're drowning in scatter.

I do believe there is a process in which we can organize in self-reflection, a sort of flywheel of building our voice.

I think it connects with this idea of voice itself, like, you know, what is that anyway though. I think it relates, if not, is, a sense of deep self. A sense of nature within embodied in the spirit of play and care among other emotions.

And connecting that self with the world that surrounds us as the practice of expressing that voice, whether the individual, the corporation, or any spirit, we can extrapolate this to any aspect of nature.

Then there's this struggle in communicating with others. We need to not only understand our own jumble of thought, but the words that others use and the beliefs that others hold for us to have any chance at being understood, if not being understandable at all.

Well, maybe I can bring this somewhere concrete. Lemme give you an example in music. Sometimes I'll sit at the keys and create something, some improvisation, some structure, who knows?

It is a common cliche that artists channel something from somewhere they don't understand.

It's quite often a musician will create something and wonder, whoa, where did that come from? And wonder whether they could ever do it again. As unique as it makes the person, it creates this shared experience amongst us all.

Rarely after I've created something, can I reproduce it again as it was, at least not at first. I readily forget what I just made, if not how I made it.

My first response is to seek that feeling again, that feeling of creation because it's so much fun. And it can be useful certainly, but I've never found it to be a reliable path for reproduction.

Feelings rarely if ever bow to my conscious whim, and if they do, can only be for some short period of time, and even then demand some form of payment, whiplash of exhaustion, anger, or some opposite somewhere.

In the world of music, I generally just create a headache between the notes if I try to push myself in some direction. But if I rest my mind on what I created, maybe listening to the recording, feel out the structures, oh, this contrasts with that, oh, here there's a note that aligns with that.

This flows here and there. All these connections with what I already hold to be true within me. I grow this repository, this ball of understanding within. I often wonder at it, and my goodness, I wouldn't have consciously created such an intricate set of connections. And I wouldn't have.

But in that study of whatever it is that I had created from some unconscious realm, maybe spent in exhaustion, arrest my hands on the keys, and suddenly there's this new bursting forth, new ideas where I can create not only with whatever I had just made and learned again.

But now with variations and complexities and new structures. With the understanding of the internal I am building on my voice.

It seems strange to need to internalize what already seems internal, but this practice, whatever the method of reviewing what we've just done to create from there gives us a more tangible, visceral connection to whatever the materials are.

If I study and find somewhere within that I can play and I can move forward.

But if I can find what that play means to me, where that connects within what I understand in a way that means something to me in depth, I'm creating a conduit to my voice. I am building my voice even further.

We're no longer this passive receptacle. We're no longer connecting by rote. We're now taking the information and building from a deeper sense of self, one that's more accessible to our emotions of play and care.

It's a practice, not something given. It's not something that one either has or doesn't have.

Again, similar to playing an instrument of the piano, maybe as some of us start with a talent, but no matter where we begin, we still need to regularly connect with that field learning, engaging, being with internalizing.

And this is where beyond showing up to practice, we find a deliberate act. Sitting at the keys with the words, somewhere in the midst of work and play, might fall into this path of least resistance, seeking only the feeling. But in a pause, I can decide, ah, you know, I don't know where this came from, what that means.

Deliberately if I rest my mind in that blurry soup of thought and understanding and see where things resolve from confusion into clarity, I'm developing my voice.

When I remember to take my hands away from the keys, resting them in my lap for a moment, closing my eyes, maybe I picture the shapes and interactions of the sound, the rhythm, the harmony.

In doing so, I can return to the keys with new ideas, new energy. What was once unconscious is now conscious. Where I can more deeply connect and guide the sounds reflecting whatever universal spirits there are without getting in their way. Another trope of artistry.

Whatever I find will necessarily be attached to some unique voice because there's only one me, much as there's only one you.

So I guess if there's a takeaway here, is there some piece of play or work where you can pause, and for a moment, close your eyes and ask, what about this do I not understand? What can I reproduce from where I am? Can I rest my mind there and see what comes to mind? Can I find some ease within it? Some marker of mastery perhaps.

The following piece of music is called "Alight". I may have even played it for you before. It's one of those pieces that have clear parts, but somehow those parts keep shifting in relationship to each other every time I play it.

And I like to explore those shifts, why is it that I do it two times there and three times there and, and, and not so much this time and more in that time, and who knows?

But if that didn't happen, if those shifts and changes didn't happen every time I played it, then I think the piece would probably die. I wouldn't wanna play it anymore. It's in F minor three quarters time. I hope you enjoy it.

Mentioned in this episode:

Waves of Focus YouTube Series

Look out for new episodes of the new Waves of Focus YouTube series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpQS5q6yvRw