 However, today focal things are “inconspicuous” and have “suffered a diaspora” (199).Borgmann goes on to argue that this is because “focal things can prosper in human practices only” (200).This is due, first, to “the mistaken assumption that the shaping of our lives can be left to a series of individual decisions” (206)—in other words, we don't “establish and commit oneself to a practice” involving focal things (207).