attention is sacred
exploring the sacred nature of "attention"
sari and
attention is sacred
Being with somebody for an hour is much easier than paying attention to somebody for an hour. The former requires only physical (or virtual) proximity, and we do it every day. The latter happens only rarely. It requires us to donate all our emotional, spiritual, and intellectual energy to being with another person. I can recall only a few occasions... See more
Michael Austin • The Sacrament of Attention
You’re doomscrolling because you’re looking for something to transform you but you can’t stay with one thing for long enough to be transformed by it. You have short attention span on an existential scale. You’re gliding past thousands of small worlds in minutes, laughing at one post, feeling dread at the next, tempted to buy something right after.... See more
Sherry Ning • You’re bored because you don’t love anything
beautiful things don't ask for attention
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... See more
Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in the... See more
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.
A book is, we know, an unrivaled technology for living more life .
The contemporary internet-abetted image, on the other hand, is a highly potent yet f--ked-up technology for living more life. It comes with all kinds of strings attached, and it has a way of leaving us feeling lonely, lacking, unsatisfied, and jittery.
This is not thanks to creeping... See more
The contemporary internet-abetted image, on the other hand, is a highly potent yet f--ked-up technology for living more life. It comes with all kinds of strings attached, and it has a way of leaving us feeling lonely, lacking, unsatisfied, and jittery.
This is not thanks to creeping... See more
This life gives you nothing
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)
Jeff Bezos on retraining our attention spans