Discovering Focus

Focus seems to come not only from concentrating on a single object for a long time. In fact, more often, I experience focus in the opposite way, as a kind of 'falling into line' with something which comes from letting go of distractions. Now, what's the difference between these two views about focus? The first view suggests that focus is like a narrow laser beam of light that is generated through an intense, concentrated effort of the mind. In other words, focus is based on will power and force. The second view of focus, however, suggests that it is something that is almost discovered: as though it was always there, latent within us, if only we could settle down and let go of our desires to be elsewhere.
   Interestingly, it seems that focus can often come through acts of grace, not necessarily through personal will power (although the latter plays a big part in sustaining focus). By "grace", I am referring to an event where the mind suddenly drops its tendency to distract itself endlessly, and finally falls into what needs to happen in the moment. It's hard to achieve this kind of focus unless one goes through a kind of difficulty which seems insurmountable at first, but ends up being the only route up the hill. Kafka, I believe, must have had a sense of what it means when he was writing his major works, because his characters often continue to try to find light of truth even in the depths of their confusion or despair. The kind of focus we see in these characters is coming from the other side of hope: when I can't go on but must go on (to quote Beckett), I find that there is something that allows me to always go on, regardless of where my will happens to be in the moment. But this 'something' is indefinable, and it is so rarely seen until the will exhausts itself or finds itself in the deepest paradox of not knowing where to go or who it is, much less what it should be doing.