Five Minute Friday ~ Focus

"Come join [Lisa Jo and] a weekly flash mob of writers at Five Minute Friday!

Where a beautiful crowd spends five minutes all writing on the same topic and then sharing ‘em over here.

Want to know how Five Minute Friday got started and how to participate? All the details are here.

Now set your timer, clear your head, for five minutes of free writing without worrying about getting it right.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.

2. Link back here and invite others to join in.

3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community...

Oh and Ahem, if you would take pity and turn off comment verification, it would make leaving some love on your post that much easier for folks!

OK, are you ready? Please give us your best five minutes on..."

Focus… 

I was probably in third or fourth grade the first time I learned a little bit about the eye...  I've learned even more since, and it is a pretty amazing organ!

How images are actually seen upside down.

How the pretty, colored part is actually a muscle which helps control the amount of light entering the eye.

How in the dark there's a blind spot right in the center of the eye, so you can see more clearly through peripheral vision or looking sideways.

How eyes focus by squeezing and stretching... and squeezing and stretching... so that focal length is fashioned for the fixed size equivalent to the size of a ping pong ball.

How our eyes cannot see a completely static, non-moving image. That is why when you look closely at someone's eye, is always appears to be quivering or shaking slightly. In research and experiments where they completely immobilize the eye, fixing it so that the research subject can only gaze upon one spot, the image simply fades away.

How our eyes simply gather and transmit information. It's our brains who organize and make sense of that information so that we can actually see. Maybe we should actually say, "per-see-ve?"

All of this trivial information fascinates and interests, but it also has me thinking. Sometimes as a mama, I have these thoughts of wishing I could make everything stop... I could have a moment to focus and concentrate my efforts... look at things directly and drink in what's right before my eyes... particularly as it relates to these kiddos I see bouncing around my house every day. 

Yet, if I truly managed to do that, if I actually arrested time for a few moments, stopped the growing and changing and developing and moving on... stopped all the squeezing and stretching that is necessary to focus... the images I'm so trying to perceive, preserve, treasure would simply fade away.

And then I'd miss something spectacular, for sure.