What’s that word for shoving a live eel up a horse’s butt?
Howdy. Blake again. Real live human boy who runs the blog show here.
I’m a word nerd. I once spontaneously described Toastmasters as an “antiquated oratorical fraternity,” and my sister-in-law nearly spit her pea soup across a restaurant. I used to be Grand Poobah of Loquacious Quips.
And then I found myself in speech therapy, unable to describe a tree. Nor a cloud. I gaped at a cartoon seahorse – about which, before my brain surgery, I’d completed some 300 pages of a book (I mean a book I wrote) – and called it a starfish.
Alas, an inoperable oligodendroglioma – that’s a brain tumor – clutches the language processing center of my left frontal lobe, his wee Keds still scuffing some of the cells that give rise to my art, that put blog-bought potatoes on my board.
Difficult to describe (heh!) how disconcerting it is when one month you’re teaching Chaucer in the original Middle English to sophomores at the country’s most prestigious college honors program—
—and the next month, you can’t spell the word “world” backwards. I mean, literally. For 60 seconds, you’re slouching there in front of a panel of whitecoats, hangdog, counting out the letters on one hand, then staring blankly back at your digits, squirming, stymied after the thumb’s d.
Then along comes Focus@Will. Now I’m not arguing that we’ve developed some kind of cure-all for brain cancer nor any of its associated challenges. I claim only substantive success at helping me concentrate on the word-finding skills that are critical to my profession, our communication, and your comprehension.
It’s hard enough to focus nowadays, what with all the distractions abounding, especially online. Add to that any number of brain disorders like mine (we all have at least one disruptive brain glitch that diligently knock us off track, all the while cackling maniacally) and you’ve got a recipe for disaster on the focus front.
So again, I’m not suggesting we’ve got the solution here to aphasia or any other cerebral dysfunction. I am saying I use the science of Focus@Will daily to keep my attention honed whenever I work. And you can, too. This music is a tool in my focus arsenal. And in yours, too. Use it.
In some coming blogs, we’re going to delve into more of the neuro-details in operation around here. How does our revolutionary science work? What’s going on in the brain while you listen to our tracks? How exactly (well, maybe not “exactly,” because the brain’s a complicated instrument) does our music help you focus?
Who are the scientists and visionaries behind the app’s success?
Soon, too, we’re going to announce a key partnership with a supercool team of brain science experts. Together, we’re going to take this corner of the neuromusical world by storm—and our mutual users will win big.
We’re also about to introduce you to more users like me and you, who are benefiting by optimizing our attention on various tasks at hand.
Meantime, try the app if you haven’t. Let us know how it’s working, and whether you’ve got suggestions for improvement.
From our brains to yours, stay focused.
Oh, so what the *heck* is that horse-butt-eel thing called?
Aha! I just remembered, thanks to the Acoustical Plus channel: It’s called feaguing. Now if only I can remember why on Earth we need a word for that…