“We are wired to flit.” This sentence anchored my attention for the microsecond that goes for my attention span these days. The sentence linked to an article about 5th century Saint John Cassian, who complained that the mind… “‘wanders around like it were drunk’,” an amusing and learned essay about medieval monks’ speculations, theories and practical advice to harness attention.

I had been spending an unexpected free hour last Friday sitting at the corner of a pond, observing dragon flies. Big blue ones that never sat still, and smaller red ones that lit on little sticks poking out of the water, frequently taking off and immediately returning again in no predictable pattern. I felt my mind was working in parallel with these creatures, constantly in motion, occasionally resting on a topic, soon off wandering again, flitting, indeed.

I jumped on the opportunity, then, when yesterday’s essay by John Dickerson on focus and good use of time caught my eye in The Atlanctic. It is a pensive piece on the restlessness associated with our current loss of daily structure, and the inability to ward off intrusions that result from our need to follow the news, feel connected through the electronic media and satisfy our craving for distraction. I was taken by the sentence I cited to open today’s blog.

So far so good, in fact I am often engaged by Dickerson’s approach to thinking and writing, as much as one can judge from irregular reading of his essays in cultural magazines. But then I dug a bit deeper into the tool kit he proposed to anchor our flitting ways. He was quite charmed by a method he had received from Marshall Goldsmith, leading executive coach to the nations’ and international big wigs in banking and industry.

Make a spread sheet, with questions on the left, daily answers on the right, weekly averages. Answers can be in binary form, 1=yes met the goal, 0=nope, or devise scales. Questions can be as simple as “Did I make time to weed the garden” or as general as “have I made myself or someone else happy…” The questions, according to Dickerson, are to be about behaviors, not necessarily outcomes. In theory reviewing these every night forms habits, let’s you see where you are strong or weak in spots, and as daily reminders on your desktop serve as rescue signal when you are once again drawn for too many minutes into Twitter….

Of course the mention of “America’s leading coach” had me look up his website, where you can find his version of the spread sheet for free. If you are interested in spending time on 32 questions everyday which delve, among others, into weight management and flossing, consumption of sweets and duration of TV time – outcome oriented, mind you – then this is the way to go for you. If you are capable of paying someone every day to call you and have you read the list to them to be held accountable (our willpower, after all, is lacking as the monks in the year 420 already knew), then this is your path to salvation. Well, that might be wishful thinking. Let’s say, it might be the path to answering all your emails and cleaning the kitchen. Who knows.

For me the whole exercise, perhaps with the exception of the “what have I done for others” bit, is way too focussed on Self. The craving for improvement. The desire for performance. The yearning for predictability. The return to what we once took for “normal.” It is also a token of our privilege. You think someone out of work, living at the edge, out in the streets protesting for BLM has the need, or even someone just devoted to helping defend those who are arrested, or someone buying the groceries for at-risk group neighbors after work has the time and energy to record and discuss 32 item of personal accomplishments each day?

I am currently easily distracted. Yes, it’s hard to write long, thoughtful pieces these days. Pretending that it is a sign of personal messiness, of lack of will, surmountable with the right bag of tricks, ignores and defies our being in a world that itself is stretched thin. This world and I are linked, its and my brittleness needs acknowledging, rather than papering over with pretend improvement. When politics and pandemics defy our norms, my own cannot pretend to be untouched.

Besides, I hate to floss.

Photographs are of dragonflies from the Eastcoast last fall, and the red ones from here last week.

Music has to be Chopin’s Preludes Op. 28 – Nr. 11 is titled the Dragonfly – and the pianist’s dress might as well be borrowed from one, sized XXXL.