That ONE Thing?

Ravell's Bolero from Allegro non-Troppo

It’s not the only thing - but what if it was? What might be the result of my, your, total and complete focus was on a single subject?  That ONE project or chore that has been SCREAMING for attention. You know the one as well as I do. What is, I ask in all honesty, so important, timely and pressing that it would keep us from acting upon the perfect-pitch call of the universe? Distractions are the paths of least resistance, but it is the very resistance to distraction that empowers our creativity and self value. 

I keep a three-ring notebook to the right of my keyboard (I am right-handed) along with my favorite mechanical pencil (BIC #2, 0.7mm, red) to jot down notes, ideas, charts, plots, scales, lists and correct spellings, along with workout structures, lyrics, memes, koans, haiku and a thousand other things. I find that it helps to get it down in order to get it out. I no longer have the RAM to store everything that comes to me in the form of random cosmic input. Two things result from this process, one, if I don’t write it down I will waste an incredible amount of subsequent energy filing, finding, forgetting and searching for it. I hate to admit but sometimes I need to stop all the engines and remember exactly what it was I was just doing, or thinking, or considering or planning. Writing it down also gives me the opportunity to start somewhere. If I, as I just was, offered a new word in a context with which I am involved, music in this case, I want to explore and unravel its mystery. Thank Google for that! Want to play along? OK, the word is ostinato (I had to type it three times to evade the spellcheck thugs so I know it is a good one!)

Ostinato is a musical term, a repetition of notes as (possibly) a base underlayment from which to build a movement upon. For you classical music fans, think Ravell’s Bolero. BUT, and here it gets interesting, it can also be used in contexts such as indoor cycling training, screenwriting and just about anything else you can think of requiring a regular succession of actions.  Breaths, heart-beats, planks, acts in a dramatic story, minutes spent in meditative awareness, household chores and dare I suggest lovemaking. Rhythm, cadence, amplitude, oscillation, groove, dynamic flow are all units defining and measuring a beat. With practice, patience and discipline we can tango our way into life’s dance with focus and purpose. I know that this can be a struggle, finding the appropriate current to assist us in the process, but with a little structure and a lot of faith, we can avoid distraction and focus on the importance of listening to that song and adding our notes in the margin. We can take notes of everything that is swirling around us in order to isolate and later refer to. I think if we can master this technique and practice relentlessly enough to simply, after a time,  we can let the distraction go and let the focus flow. 

I can’t see any reason why this cannot be that one thing. Why this cannot be the only thing. Our complete focus on the single subject of hearing that call and acting upon it.