Hyper focus
By: Michael Goltz
Tags: Aspergers Syndrome, Psychology, Music, Art, The Ascent

Hyper focus tends to take many forms. Most people are familiar with some form of hyper focus, whether it be Beethoven writing his music or an artists spending long hours in front of their work perfecting it. Personally I find that I get hyper focused in a number of ways that last for varying lengths of time. First there is the classic definition of hyper focus when I get deeply fixated on doing something and continue that work for hours on end. Such is often the case when painting icons. I can get into “a zone” and work on the icon for many hours. This is what people think of when the phrase hyper focus comes to mind. However hyper focus takes many other forms with me as well.

There are times when I can get hyper focused on a song. I get hyper focused on songs in both a long term and short term way, each of which has a different effect. I will listen to the same song over and over all day long. Some times for days on end. When I do this, I won’t listen to any other songs than the one that I am hyper focused on. While doing this I may listen for a few reps of the song only to the base line, or other times only the rhythm guitar. It is always very random what song I get stuck on. On a larger scale though, I would get hyper focused on the music of one person or band for long periods of time. During these periods I would only listen to the music of the person or band. Such was the case in 2004 during my first divorce. I had disc two of Pink Floyd’s live CD The Delicate Sound of Thunder on repeat in my car for about 6 months. It was during this time that I went from being a causal fan of Pink Floyd to being all about their music. I remember sitting there thinking “wow, they get it” while listening to the CD, the thought being in relation to the pain of the divorce.

When it comes to photography and art, I tend to get hyper focused quite a bit. Most of my friends know that up until about 3 years ago iconography was almost all that I talked or thought about. However, even within iconography I tend to have mini hyper focuses. I learned very early on in the study of iconography that Icons of God the Father are forbidden because in the words of Christ “No one has seen the Father but me, and he who has seen me has seen the Father.” Once I got it in my mind that icons of God the Father are forbidden, my mind became a magnet for looking for them in churches. There is a Church on the southside of Pittsburgh that my ex and I used to attend which has close to a dozen versions of this icon in it. It drove my ex nuts when at church that I would constantly point out the icons and mention that Christ himself forbid them. About 8 years ago Fr. John Abdallah (now Bishop JOHN) and I were discussing the subject and he pointed out to me that my aversion to this icon was beyond the realm of normal. I tried to remind him that I am an iconographer and he told me that even for an iconographer I had an abnormal fixation on this icon.

With photography the hyper focus tends to take the form of finding one model who I like to work with and then working almost exclusively with that model for months on end, until either I get tired of working with her or she gets tired of working with me. Sure this produces a great working relationship where the photographer and model can learn to work off each other, but it is also very limiting to my portfolio. I really need to learn to work against this hyper focus and work outside of my comfort zone much more often in order to expand my photographic portfolio.

These are just a few of the ways that I get hyper focused on things. There are many other ways as well.