Try to Focus...Without Using the Word, Thought, or Idea

Jupiter and Saturn, December 2020

Focus: "Latin hearth, fireplace. A point at which rays of light, heat, or the like, meet after being reflected or refracted....in fig. use, a central point, as of attraction, attention, or activity...tr. To bring (rays of light, etc.) to a focus; fig., to concentrate...to adjust...to a focus...to bring into focus." 

- The New Century Dictionary

"focus (n.)

1640s, "point of convergence," from Latin focus "hearth, fireplace" (also, figuratively, "home, family"), which is of unknown origin. Used in post-classical times for "fire" itself; taken by Kepler (1604) in a mathematical sense for "point of convergence," perhaps on analogy of the burning point of a lens (the purely optical sense of the word may have existed before Kepler, but it is not recorded). Introduced into English 1650s by Hobbes. Sense transfer to "center of activity or energy" is first recorded 1796.

focus (v.)

1775 in optics, "bring into focus" (transitive); 1807 in the figurative sense, from focus (n.). Intransitive use by 1864, originally in photography. Related: Focused; focusing; less commonly focussed; focussing." 

- Online Etymological Dictionary

Up until about 245 years ago, there was no English verb 'to focus'. Up until about 400 years ago, there was no English word for 'focus' as an abstract point of concentration.

Consider apparently related words, like blur and blurry, which first show up in English in the 1500s. To this day, online dictionary entries for blur and blurry make no reference to focusing or cameras.

Consider concentrate, which in Latin means center (noun), but which doesn't appear in English as we understand it until the 1600s - just 400 years ago.

A Shakespeare concordance shows no instances of focus or concentrate, and only two instances of blur, in both instances meaning smear or stain, not something indistinct.

So how did humans speaking English up until just 200 or so years ago, 'think' about concentrating their thoughts, focusing their attention, making clear and distinct what is blurry?

Try it for yourself - try going through the day today without using focus, blurry, or concentrate. Not only in speech, but in private, interior thought, do without these words, and see what happens. I will too, and we'll share what we find.