Focus is really easy. Or at least simple. Pick something, and focus on it. Take it deadly seriously. Focus like your life depends on it. FOCUS. Keep doing it. Do not stop for anything. Do it many times per day for long periods of time.
That's how I got started. Since I was REALLY planning to focus, I wanted some basic assurance that I wasn't throwing my mind into some kind of black hole I couldn't get out of. (Remember how seriously I was planning to try to focus.) I decided that an alarm clock or timer would be my signal that I could release my focus. I was sort of worried about losing myself or my ego entirely, so I would tell myself that there's no possible way that could happen. (I'd eventually fall asleep, wake up, and my personality would be reloaded.) I made sure that everything could stay on hold for a couple of hours--no fire on the oven, whatever. Mostly, this was just to get rid of any possible excuse for not focusing to the highest degree I could ever achieve. Anyway, I did this for many hours per day while I was unemployed, and ... it works. You will focus like you've never focused before. Amazing things will happen--I remember meditating in my room, and hearing a family member call my name... except that I only perceived it as physical sensation. It was only after I was done meditating that I recalled the sensation that had hit my ears and knew that someone had tried to call me--it had no meaning during the duration the meditation. It actually can be kind of dangerous if you do it like that because you can go past the level of unresponsiveness would you get in sleep. You reach a point where even if you felt pain, you just wouldn't respond. The neurons would fire, you would perceive it, and your mind would assign no meaning; you just wouldn't "care."
If you focus to that degree, you can't be stressed, because you simply have absolutely no thought of anything that can stress you, and even if you did, you would not comprehend / respond do it. Getting good at meditating like this can steam-roll everything. I swear I was in states of mind where losing an arm wouldn't have concerned me in the slightest.
I remeber afterward, in times of stress, I would start meditating like this again. Eventually, you're just different. Like, I would feel stress start to rise, and then just decide to block it out. I don't know exactly how to describe it, but it's like if you can push your attention around so rigidly, you can just refuse to pay attention to anything, and it just goes away. You can feel the stress rise, then just focus on it an ... extinguish it. It's hard to explain. You can stop it as if it were an ordinary voluntary thought.
Hmm. I tend to think that Rand's philosophy misses some important points, like:
1. Humans hate inequality, esp. those who are on the losing end, but it seems to make everyone unhappier in general. Inequality is useful, but probably needs some managing.
2. Massive wealth generated in modern societies, though it tends to fall into the hands of a few (exponentially so), is generated by having a society/collective. If you have more wealth than you could ever generate with your own two hands, then you're benefitting from society in a major way, regardless of how much society takes back. (Even this is not strictly true--what you can generate with your own two hands depends on education, inventions society has given to you (like language), etc. It's hard to calculate one's debt to society.)
I think it's important what kind of inequality we're talking about. Are we talking inequality between two people with similar opportunities and education, one lazy and unimaginative and the other a creative risk taker?
Or are we talking inequality between joe the dock worker, son of a dock worker, working the dock reasonably well, but never looking beyond, and jack the corporate lawyer, son of a corporate lawyer, working the legal docs reasonably well, but never looking beyond?
Inequality throughout history was rarely down to merit. I very much sympathise with Rand's point of view, but after having lived in one of the most run-down parts of the UK, I know that poverty breeds poverty.
Yes the superstars rise from poverty through their own work and they should not be punished for it. But for every superstar there are 100 joe/jack pairs and the difference between their income is based on little else than class.
[edit] Jill the waitress might have been a better example since dock workers have a powerful trade union in some countries.
I think the closer you get to merit based accumulations of wealth the better for society. Let's suppose you could give 15 million inflation adjusted to your children, but after that it's taxed at 75%. Now clearly 4 billion to 1 billion is not going to eliminate wealth quickly, but the history of the ford family and the ford company is going to look vary different.
Now do the same thing but start that at 250k vs 15 million. Your still going to have the corporate lawyer issue but that still has a lot to do with education and a type of drive.
"Massive wealth generated in modern societies, though it tends to fall into the hands of a few (exponentially so), is generated by having a society/collective. If you have more wealth than you could ever generate with your own two hands, then you're benefitting from society in a major way, regardless of how much society takes back. (Even this is not strictly true--what you can generate with your own two hands depends on education, inventions society has given to you (like language), etc. It's hard to calculate one's debt to society.)"
You know, if you replace every instance of "society" in that sentence with "people throughout history who were left free to create things that make life easier, without having the product of their effort stolen from them," you'd get something Ayn Rand might have written herself.
I think (1) is a really interesting point, but don't you think that humans also strive for inequality? People don't just want to keep up with the Jones's, they derive great satisfaction from being ahead of the Jones's.
2) I think society benefits more from the generators of massive wealth than they do from the society. Obviously it is mutually beneficial, but the fountains of wealth would probably do fine with or without society.
I switched to Dvorak about 10 years ago. I never regained my full QWERTY speed (which was 100+ WPM--from what I hear, the faster you type, the harder it is to regain your full speed. I type fast enough that I don't care that much, but it's still annoying), and always find it annoying when I have to use a QWERTY keyboard. I found no particular demonstrable benefit (more ergonomic, better speed), except that it's more aesthetically pleasing... your fingers don't fly around as much. If you type QWERTY after typing Dvorak, you feel like you're trying to make your fingers fly around some computer for a 1950s science fiction movie (exaggerated, pointless).
Overall, I don't really regret it or think it was a good decision. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't bother, but I'll be using Dvorak for life.
That's how I got started. Since I was REALLY planning to focus, I wanted some basic assurance that I wasn't throwing my mind into some kind of black hole I couldn't get out of. (Remember how seriously I was planning to try to focus.) I decided that an alarm clock or timer would be my signal that I could release my focus. I was sort of worried about losing myself or my ego entirely, so I would tell myself that there's no possible way that could happen. (I'd eventually fall asleep, wake up, and my personality would be reloaded.) I made sure that everything could stay on hold for a couple of hours--no fire on the oven, whatever. Mostly, this was just to get rid of any possible excuse for not focusing to the highest degree I could ever achieve. Anyway, I did this for many hours per day while I was unemployed, and ... it works. You will focus like you've never focused before. Amazing things will happen--I remember meditating in my room, and hearing a family member call my name... except that I only perceived it as physical sensation. It was only after I was done meditating that I recalled the sensation that had hit my ears and knew that someone had tried to call me--it had no meaning during the duration the meditation. It actually can be kind of dangerous if you do it like that because you can go past the level of unresponsiveness would you get in sleep. You reach a point where even if you felt pain, you just wouldn't respond. The neurons would fire, you would perceive it, and your mind would assign no meaning; you just wouldn't "care."
If you focus to that degree, you can't be stressed, because you simply have absolutely no thought of anything that can stress you, and even if you did, you would not comprehend / respond do it. Getting good at meditating like this can steam-roll everything. I swear I was in states of mind where losing an arm wouldn't have concerned me in the slightest.
I remeber afterward, in times of stress, I would start meditating like this again. Eventually, you're just different. Like, I would feel stress start to rise, and then just decide to block it out. I don't know exactly how to describe it, but it's like if you can push your attention around so rigidly, you can just refuse to pay attention to anything, and it just goes away. You can feel the stress rise, then just focus on it an ... extinguish it. It's hard to explain. You can stop it as if it were an ordinary voluntary thought.