Integrating depth with perspective

The ability to concentrate intensely, immersing ourselves deeply in a certain task or activity, is declining in the 21st century. Studies on this subject show this. Many people who used to immerse themselves for long periods of time in reading a book, solving a problem, creating a work or in dialogued reflection, today find it difficult to do so: it is no longer so natural and habitual. There is no doubt about what is the main factor in this change: digital social networks, particularly those based on scrolling, are accustoming their billions of users to the consumption of brief and scattered content that provoke frequent changes in emotional state and intellectual focus, a dynamic that can be both addictive and harmful to mental depth.

But concentration, as Bruce Lee said, “is the root of all human capabilities”. Only focusing attention allows us to perform deep tasks and only this type of work leads to remarkable progress. The constant change of focus, multitasking, may be appropriate for easy tasks, but in activities that require large doses of effort, skill and decision-making, it does not give the best results. Shifting attention from one subject to another involves an energy expenditure: the more often we make this change and the stronger these changes are, the more our psychic energy is lost in the transitions and therefore becomes unproductive. For this reason, the diversity of projects and open processes can make it difficult for us to progress, especially if we do not have the tools and knowledge to skillfully manage this diversity.

However, as we said in Thought #18, incurring in a vision that is too narrow and focused on details without context has also been a common problematic trend in the contemporary world. The capacity for concentration must therefore be combined with that of perspective, since only the breadth of vision allows us to make decisions based on the good criteria that understanding the whole, and considering its complexity, gives us. And naturally, as we mentioned in Thought #6, we achieve a greater degree of perspective to the extent that we are capable of adopting more diverse points of view, combining them into a coherent global vision.

In short, a great challenge that we have in the hyper-technological society of the 21st century is the integrated practice of depth and perspective. If perspective is essential to achieve a good general conception, depth is essential for good specific execution. Like the eagle, it is advisable that we soar placidly over the territory, contemplating the panorama and, when appropriate, focus on a point in great detail, precipitating all our energy on it. This bird that flies silently at high altitudes derives its formidable power from this prodigious combination of perspective (a field of vision of up to 340° compared to 180-200° for humans) and depth (a sharpness 4 to 8 times greater than ours), being able to switch from its panoramic mode to its telescopic mode in a matter of milliseconds.

Books such as “The Integral Vision” (Ken Wilber), “Range” (David Epstein), “The Systemic View of Life” (Fritjof Capra) or “The Well-Made Head” (Edgar Morin) provide us with inspiring ideas for broadening our perspective, while others such as “Deep work” (Cal Newport), “Focus” (Daniel Goleman), “Essentialism” (Greg McKeown), “Indistractable” (Nir Eyal) or “The One Thing” (Gary Keller and Jay Papasan) give us valuable advice for cultivating deep concentration. Can we condense the main teachings of these reference works into a general approach to exercise, in an integrated and natural way, in our daily lives, the capacity for concentration and perspective?

The Vitalintegral method, based on the Progress Papers and the Progress Process, is designed, among other things, for this. It helps us avoid distractions and to focus our attention intensely when appropriate, but at the same time, it makes it easier for us to open our eyes to the panoramic perspective, ensuring that the transition from depth to breadth and vice versa happens very easily, fluidly and fruitfully. After ten years of researching and reflecting on these issues, I must say that I do not know of any stationery system that is as practical, in this sense, as the Progress Papers are, nor any metodological process of conscious personal (trans)formation that combines depth and perspective to the level that the Progress Process is beginning to do.

Blai Dalmau Solé