attending to the other

Unlike the dams that interrupt a river’s flow, these barriers are not concrete: they are mental structures, and they can be dismantled through practices of attention. When we take an instrumental or even algorithmic view of friendship and recognition, or fortify the imagined bastion of the self against change, or even just fail to see that we affec

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This form of attention and the knowledge it yields not only elicits more of the world, it elicits more of us. In waiting on the world in this way, applying time and strategic patience in the spirit of invitation, we draw out and are drawn out in turn. As the Latin root of attention suggests, as we extend ourselves into the world by attending to it,... See more

Subtle shifts in language can sometimes have surprising consequences. The language of attention seems particularly loaded with economic and value-oriented metaphors, such as when we speak of paying attention or imagine our attention as a scarce resource we must either waste or horde. However, to my ears, the related language of attending to the wor... See more