Obsession, Focus, and All That Jazz

Language is tricky. I was questioned on the use of the term “healthy obsession” a couple of days back. Couldn’t the word “focus” work better? The trick is that this gentleman’s question sprang from a discussion with a therapist on the danger of obsessive behavior. As soon as you bring “obsession” as a dysfunctional state (requiring therapy) you have created a separate meaning, another definition you’ll find in the dictionary, maybe the second or third one. Similar to “depression.” There is the usual state of feeling down, and then there is the life-threatening, medication and therapy requiring version that makes work impossible and death seem a viable option. DIFFERENT THINGS, and discussion is appropriate.

However, because you can never predict what words will mean to another person, it is the responsibility of the adult reader to think “hmmm. I wonder if he means something I would interpret as closer to X.” This is what we must do, if we want to learn: ask what might be intended by a communication, grasp that words are never things, and ask what the thing itself is, and what YOUR word for that might be.

Do that, and you can learn and use all manner of things. Observing ultra high-performers, I noticed they were ALL what the average person would call “obsessed” with their arena of interest. And I myself was accused of that when going after my writing career, or martial prowess. And when I saw the movie “All That Jazz” it hit me that obsession was not only required for that level of success…but that it could destroy you…