Attention
Consider the moments during your day that you feel most engaged, curious, and motivated. What were you doing at the time?
Rhea Purohit • You’re Probably Using AI Wrong
All greatness in the world consists largely of mental self-control. What we call the life of man consists simply of the stream of consciousness of the succession of images he allows to come before his mind. It is in our power to direct and choose our stream
Irving Fisher
Skillful management of attention is the indispensable condition of the good life and the key to improving every aspect of your experience.. What do you choose to focus on, and what do you choose to ignore? Attention defines your life in many ways.
The most straightforward way to improve your information diet is to develop a habit for meta-awareness; to pay attention to what you're paying attention to.
The Intellectual Obesity Crisis
Acknowledge just how much of what you think, feel and do is picked up from others, consciously and unconsciously, and try to become more conscious of more of them.
Ian Leslie • How To Be Influenced
The discomfort of giving ourselves over to meaningful activities is what leads us towards distraction (Sacasas)
Attention is to see the world truthfully, overcoming our natural self-centeredness. It’s both what goes out and seeks something with a measure of focus and a readiness to perceive what is there — openness, active reception of what is in front of us. To be attentive is to be present, stretching to be at hand. (Sacasas)
Information and media abundance have made us cognitively impatient. We don't want to spend the time.
But if the deep roots of boredom are in a lack of meaning, rather than a shortage of stimuli, and if there is a subtle, multilayered process by which information can give rise to meaning, then the constant flow of information to which we are becoming habituated cannot deliver on such a promise. At best, it allows us to distract ourselves with the p... See more
As Iris Murdoch puts it, “reality” is “that which is revealed to the patient eye of love.” Or, elsewhere, “Attention is rewarded by a knowledge of reality.”