A friend was told she had an unhealthy diversity of interests. If I get told that, I may consider the statement but I may also ignore it. I would likely be affected by my feelings toward the teller. Whatever I felt or had recently about the person making the statement, I might be able to shorten my reflection time by asking myself what I felt about my interests. I guess I would add in thinking about my concentration.
Am I a flitter? Do I run from interest to interest, leaving too much undone, half done? Since I am old enough to have had many interests, which I take to mean many things to look at, engage in, consider, I probably have had enough experience to have a grounded judgment about my behavior. I have several credentials as an interested reader. But my parents and grandparents did not accuse me of reading too much nor of jumping from subject to subject nor flitting around among different books too much.
There is a great deal of writing on the subject of mental concentration and focus. Much meditation language is about focusing on a single anchor but usually the anchor is an arbitrary point that, in itself, is meaningless. It seems to me that practicing a strong focus and awareness of a single point tends to increase my ability to notice when my attention moves to something else. For 10 minutes or so, being more aware of what I am attending to produces greater mindfulness that continues on after the practice session.
However, that single point practice often morphs over time into using a different focus, my attention itself. If I can watch my mind's associations, its chaining from one topic to another is amazing. Take my grandmother. I can see her now. I can move from her diminutive stature to her smoking, her comments, her history, her opinions, her love of the drama of professional wrestling on the fun new box, that 10" television set, you know, the box that weighed almost as much as she did. Should I avoid thinking about my grandmother? Should you? Are you experiencing an unhealthy diversity of interests as you allow yourself to think of my grandmother?
