On Intentionality
Ben Brown / May 2025 (669 Words, 4 Minutes)
“Tunnel Vision” is a phenomenon meant to describe the literal narrowing of one’s field of view, usually the symptom of a broader condition or disease. Its meaning is double, though. In an abstract, metaphorical sense, it refers to the narrowing of one’s mental vision– the narrowing of one’s thoughts into one point, a singularity, where the periphery is blocked and ignored. Looking back at the physical sensation, you can see how this could be dangerous, especially if operating something larger than yourself, like a car. Being incapable of seeing the periphery blinds oneself to the true reality and prevents action on its behalf.
As Adults, we often lament childhood, how it was a “simpler time”. When I was little, I remember playing freely in the woods that surround my grandmother’s house with my cousins. We would run through fields, climb rocks and trees, and collect twigs (swords) that fell from the canopy. Our goal was singular: entertain ourselves until the next meal. There were no other responsibilities, no stress, no periphery to view, but this would change with age. With age comes responsibility, and with responsibility comes a wider periphery to manage. Eventually, our field of view becomes too much to handle alone, and we must instead switch to a method of rapid focus-shifting. This task is exhausting, and it becomes easy to stop switching focus and simply maintain a certain view. If this approach is taken in a literal sense, it’s easy to focus on a single point on the road, but the car will likely crash if you do so.
Some good friends and I read Henry David Thoreau’s Walden a few months ago. It’s an autobiographical account of Thoreau’s time living (mostly) apart from society, on the shore of Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. He writes:
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
The work largely revolves around him stepping back from the complacency of tunnel vision society encourages. He abandons his prescribed duty to productive labor in an economy, and instead elects to live in a tiny shack in the woods with nothing more than a bed, a writing desk, a stove, and a field of farmed beans. He abandons the pressure for perfect work, and instead acts imperfectly, or rather, as perfectly as desired, because no more is necessary for survival. By stepping back, he reconnects with the true essentials of life– patterns of thought that are suppressed by life in a city. He marvels at the way the pond freezes in winter, how mushrooms grow like ears on the trees in spring. He decides to survey the depth of Walden pond for his own amusement in the winter, without practical training or permission. He lives deliberately, only giving attention where he decides it should go.
It’s easy to fall into attention traps laid by others. Attention is a currency in this day and age, and many don’t realize that we may choose how to spend it. Thoreau made a point of discussing this idea before we all carried around attention traps in our pockets, but his approach still holds true today. While reading the book, I did notice that my behaviors shifted as well. To cite a rather benign example, the way I play the game Minecraft changed.
Minecraft, being one of the most successful games of all time, has millions of players. Many of the “power gamer” types have learned how to automate nearly every task in the game in endlessly creative ways. I also tended to race to the “finish” (there is no official finish line, being a sandbox game) because that was the definition of success under which I was programmed to operate. Writing it out makes the issue seem trivial, but I was truly confused as to why I felt a lack of satisfaction while playing. When I took a step back to reevaluate my actual goals, I noticed that I wasn’t serving my goals by automating the point of the game away. I had tunnel vision on a goal that was not my own. After, I found beauty and pleasure in tasks that required some effort– in the simplicity of it all. I recognize that not everyone will feel this way, but I encourage everyone to step back and truly live deliberately. Do what you truly want to do, rather than following a mold of someone else’s success. A mind unintentionally focused is blind to the beauty of reality that surrounds it. I’ll leave you with this sentiment from Thoreau, as a reminder of this:
I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
