In Albert Borgmann’s closing arguments, he makes an effort to demonstrate how we can best reform modern technology and its paradigm. A return to focal things and practices, for Borgmann, plays an important part in reforming technology. Although I needn’t recapitulate any of Borgmann’s arguments, it’s not very hard to understand how a fostering of focal things and practices could engender greater physical engagement with the world around us. Focal things do just what their name explicitly denotes: force us to “focus” and enrich our engagements. They provide powerful ways for us to better interact with our surrounding world. The important difference between this interaction and that provided by devices, however, is that focal things proffer us the possibility of invigorating all of our senses within a context that is intimately linked to our greater world. Focal practices and things, as Borgmann so simply states, “can center and illuminate our lives” (page 4). And here is where we discover the power of some of our most beloved focal things and practices.
After reflecting upon the existence of focal things and practices and their importance to our lives, I started to come up with some of my own favorite focal activities and decided to reflect on them.
One of my favorite focal activities is hiking. I love to hike. I believe that Borgmann would agree with me in regards to the power of hiking. When I hike, a lot is required of me. Each and every one of my senses is employed. I am forced to smell the cool, crisp, refreshing scents of the current season’s air. I am guided through flowery brush and wooded groves by enlisting the aid of my sense of sight. My ability to hear allows me to envision the smooth, swiftly flowing current beyond the grasp of my eyes and affords me the ability to learn the natural calls and bleats of a diversity of animal life. My sense of taste coordinates with my sense of smell to allot me an enriched but subtle impression of my surroundings. And, arguably most importantly, through the power of touch, I am able to physically connect with nature in an unrivaled way. Texture becomes the touched and the world around me takes on a whole new meaning. This high degree of engagement is why I like to hike. As a matter of fact, I have hiked in the Rocky Mountains in northwestern Montana, the same area which Borgmann so often describes in his work, and I would highly recommend it. For the above reasons, I also love to ski. Skiing probably requires more physical stamina and skill than hiking but can be just as fun with a little practice. Skiing in the Rockies is also a lot of fun, and I would highly recommend it as well.
Another one of my favorite focal activities is swimming. Like hiking and skiing, swimming also provides an opportunity to enlist your senses. Additionally, when you swim, especially if you’re swimming in a natural environment like a river or stream, you are freed from the earthly environs of gravity because of your buoyancy and allowed to interact with nature in exotic ways. Swimming gives us a taste of what traveling to the moon or another small planetary body would feel like and allows our imaginations to run rampant. When you’re swimming, almost all of your electronic and digital devices are forced to sit idle. We are given a break from the technological stream of disengagement and consumerism and allowed to interact with what water and our imaginations have to offer.
When I compare hiking, skiing, and swimming to surfing the internet, watching TV, or playing a video game; the focal activities win out for me almost every time. It’s not that I don’t like activities which aren’t as focal, but it’s probably just that I like focal activities more than I do those which aren’t focal. Focal activities and practices really do enrich our lives and provide us with total-body experiences that devices and the like could only dream of providing. Albert Borgmann’s emphasis upon reawakening a love for focal things/practices is not inordinate because maybe such a reawakening is just what we need to relearn what we once loved most in our world.
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