Dispersed vs. Centered
November 15, 2014
Kaleidoscope of fall leaves
“The experience of centering was one I particularly sought because I thought of myself as dispersed, interested in too many things. I envied people who were ‘single-minded,’ who had one powerful talent and who knew when they got up in the morning what it was they had to do. Whereas I, wherever I turned, felt the enchantment: to the window for the sweetness if the air; to the door for the passing figures; to the teapot, the typewriter, the knitting needles, the pets, the pottery, the newspaper, the telephone. Wherever I looked, I could have lived.
It took me half my life to come to believe I was OK even if I did love experience in a loose and undiscriminating way . . . I found myself at odds with the propaganda of our times . . . One is supposed to concentrate and not spread oneself thin . . . ”
— Mary Caroline (M.C.) Richards, Centering in Pottery, Poetry and the Person
I see myself in today’s quote. I, too, have envied people who are focussed on one path. I suspected that they got farther up the career ladder than I ever would. I seemed to have changed professions every seven years or so, starting at bottom each time. But now that I’m old(er), I don’t worry anymore about what I will be when I grow up. I’m actually rather excited about all the things I want to pursue and explore in my retirement. I suspect it might be a good thing to have a Renaissance outlook, a general curiosity about many things, in our latter years. Finally, I might be in tune with my time.
These kaleidoscope pictures remind me that being dispersed rather than centered can be quite beautiful, too.
Rosemary's Blog 
November 15, 2014 at 11:25 am
ahhh- you hit the spot for me this morning!
how EVER did you capture your kaleidoscope photos?
November 16, 2014 at 8:59 am
My iPad came with an app called Photo Booth, and the kaleidoscope effect is one of the functions of this camera app. I don’t play with it often, but it is fun.
November 15, 2014 at 3:23 pm
I find that when I am grounded it puts me at my best processing to be able to do and to note and to experience all of those things at once in an optimized state.
I often want to correct people who equate grounded/centered with boring and weighted down. I find that it is quite the opposite.
November 15, 2014 at 8:55 pm
There was a time when it was considered appropriate for people to travel both paths. A “liberal” education had nothing to do with politics, and even less to do with spoiled children lolling around the campus to avoid going to work. It was assumed that a working knowledge of geography, world history, the classics of literature, both Western and otherwise, and so on, was necessary to be a functioning human being. Well, I could go on forever about all that, but you take my point. Knowledge should be broad, as well as deep, and experience likewise.
Actually, I like “broad” and “deep” better than dispersed and centered. This is purely personal, but I feel as though “dispersed” is near to “frittered away,” and that misses the point being made.
November 16, 2014 at 9:01 am
Broad and deep are probably better word choices. I like Elisa’s grounded as well, and dispersed seems the opposite of grounded. Each brings its own subtle interpretation.