attention is sacred
exploring the sacred nature of "attention"
sari and
attention is sacred
If you want to change your life, change what you pay attention to.
Austin Kleon • Keep Going: a book by Austin Kleon
800 page novels, 3.5 hour blockbuster movies, 4+ hour podcasts… Not to mention homesteading social media accounts with millions (and millions) of followers, slow food journaling version 2.4 promoting sourdough bread-making, old-school pickling and marmalade making — what’s going on?
Are we experiencing a new and evolved slow revolution? Is this the... See more
Are we experiencing a new and evolved slow revolution? Is this the... See more
We have been co-evolving with ravenous attention predators forever. This is not a fight we can, or should want to, opt out of. We already live in a universe with church, slot machines, and Rhianna. The Sorrows of Young Werther. The Beatles. The bigger and more successful they get, the more boring they become, and the easier they are to ignore.
Frank Lantz • Unpluggers, Deflators etc. pt 3: Why Not Both?
taste is the business end of attention - we will need to learn how to use it to survive. humans are not helpless creatures who must be protected from the grindhouse of optimized infotainment. we are attention warriors.
The fastest growing sector of the culture economy is distraction . Or call it scrolling or swiping or wasting time or whatever you want. But it’s not art or entertainment, just ceaseless activity.
The key is that each stimulus only lasts a few seconds, and must be repeated.
The key is that each stimulus only lasts a few seconds, and must be repeated.
Ted Gioia • The State of the Culture, 2024
Instead of movies, users get served up an endless sequence of 15-second videos. Instead of symphonies, listeners hear bite-sized melodies, usually accompanied by one of these tiny videos—just enough for a dopamine hit, and no more.
This is the new culture. And its most striking feature is the absence of Culture (with a capital C) or even mindless entertainment—both get replaced by compulsive activity.
If all else fails, consider your own mortality. How many people on their deathbeds do you think are going to say, “I wish I’d spent more time on Facebook”? Keep asking yourself the same question, again and again and again: This is your life. How much of it do you want to spend on your phone?
Catherine Price • How to Break Up With Your Phone (Published 2018)
If Your World Is Not Enchanted, You're Not Paying Attention
L. M. Sacasastheconvivialsociety.substack.comAgain, I can’t speak for anyone else, but when I spend too much time on the socials, my focus erodes to a point that I have trouble reading anything , much less keeping a page of Morrison straight in my head. Morrison didn’t write for the Elon Musk shattermind; she wrote for the Slow Zone. Anyone can read Toni Morrison, but I would argue that... See more