attention is sacred
4
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.from The State of the Culture, 2024 by Ted Gioia
sari added 3mo ago
8
If I wake up and touch my phone, I’ve already lost hours. Not because I’m browsing social media for hours, but because the mind has already been agitated, made unquiet, and the context switch back into thoughtfulness can take the whole morning. In other words, the addict part of my brain takes over and contaminates my ability to be contemplative. I... See morefrom Offscreen Magazine Interview by Craig Mod
sari added 4mo ago
There was joy in concentration, and the world afforded an inexhaustible wealth of projects to concentrate on. There was joy in effort, and the world resisted effort to just the right degree, and yielded to it at last. People cut Mount Rushmore into faces; they chipped here and there for years. People slowed the spread of yellow fever; they sprayed
... See morefrom Efforts and Goals and Joy by Simon Sarris
sari added 4mo ago
2
The vast interconnection enabled by digital platforms has ended up creating more of a sense of sameness than diversity. Users are subtly guided toward the same subsets of topics, urged on by recommendations that are designed not to serve their interests but to create profitable attention fodder to sell to advertisers. Instagram doesn’t care that yo... See morefrom Welcome to Filterworld|Dirt
aron added 4mo ago
2
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 moreandrea added 5mo ago
- Compassion, in contrast, means that I identify with the afflicted individual so fully that I feed him for the same reason I feed myself: because we are both hungry. In other words, I have paid him attention.
from Simone Weil’s Radical Conception of Attention
Alex Dobrenko added 5mo ago
- Rather than the contracting of our muscles, attention involves the canceling of our desires; by turning toward another, we turn away from our blinding and bulimic self. The suspension of our thought, Weil declares, leaves us “detached, empty, and ready to be penetrated by the object.”
from Simone Weil’s Radical Conception of Attention
Alex Dobrenko added 5mo ago
- Normally, when we pay attention to someone or something, we undertake what Weil calls a “muscular effort”: our eyes lock on another’s eyes, our expressions reflect the proper response, and our bodies shift in relation to the object to which we are paying attention. This kind of attention flourishes in therapists’ offices, business schools, and fune... See more
from Simone Weil’s Radical Conception of Attention
Alex Dobrenko added 5mo ago
muscular effort vs reflective attention
2
The way to maintain one's connection to the wild is to ask yourself what it is that you want. This is the sorting of the seed from the dirt. One of the most important discriminations we can make in this matter is the difference between things that beckon to us and things that call from our souls.
Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in the cho... See moreandrea added 6mo ago