As I get older, I have a stronger sense of needing this kind of concentration.  So many dreams and projects to realise, filling more space than the (likely) time available to complete them.  This has made me less tolerant of things which seem inessential and jejune, ephemeral distractions such as the re-hashing of news on the news in such a way that doesn’t help me understand the world better or have better responses to it.

Be concentrated and leonine in the hunt for what is your true nourishment.

Yes.  In some contexts, focus is freedom.

Source: Rumi, ‘After the meditation’, Rumi: The Essential Rumi, trans. Coleman Barks (Penguin, 1995), p. 73

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