We pay attention. We don’t give, loan, grant, gift or donate attention. We pay.
Attention as a topic isn’t discussed often. Instead it is folded into the critical issues we believe are severely impacting how we live today. And we tend to miss its importance. We ironically don’t pay attention to attention.
‘Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality.’ Susan Sontag
When we discuss the effects social media have on us, we talk about how algorithms use our data to sway our thinking, change our behaviour and divide our society. However, the point we miss is that our opinions, our thinking and our actions cannot be swayed unless we are paying attention in the first place. The algorithms work because they know what we pay attention to.
And as I mentioned in this post, our attention is our life. What we notice, the things we pay attention to make up the moments of our lives, and our lives are the sum of these moments. What we ignore, what we miss tends to slip us by – to not even become footnotes in our lives.
To put it another way; our attention dictates what we think. What we think impacts how we feel, and how we feel underpins how we behave, what we do. And all these things make up a life.
‘To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.’ Mary Oliver
Where we focus our attention is a decision and every decision comes with trade offs. For instance, if you decide to watch a 90 minute movie, that’s 90 minutes you aren’t paying attention to something else, like your kids, your phone, your wife, your friends, your rash, your future. Where we direct our attention is so incredibly important and yet we don’t discuss, and rarely think about it.
And the modern world is determined to surreptitiously pilfer our attention, our moments of consciousness. Watch this TV show, subscribe to this website, sign up to this newsletter, pay attention to this ad, want this mobile phone.
Social media algorithms are about holding attention and then selling it to the highest bidder. We worry and are outraged that our data is collected and used by unknown and secretive entities. I believe we should instead start a full blown war against the companies that steal and siphon away our attention. Surely the moments that make up our lives are more valuable than our data.
‘Giving something your time isn’t the same as giving it your attention.’ Jesse James Garrett
We claim time is our most precious commodity but don’t quite understand what is being stolen from us.
We complain about pointless meetings or spend an hour on Facebook and feel empty afterwards. We make comments like, ‘That’s forty minutes of my life I won’t get back,’ but the statement doesn’t quite capture the magnitude of the loss you feel. It is only once we realise that attention is what gives time value that we will come to understand what we are fighting for each moment of each day.
When you pay attention, you pay with your life. I like the idea of paying attention – the word reminds us ‘this is valuable’. Time and attention are the fundamental units of life. We trade these amongst one another, pay it to technology, to social media, novels, TV shows, movies, telemarketers – the list is almost infinite. But rarely do I see us asking, ‘what am I getting in return?’ Is what we pay with our time and attention worth it? I think we should be miserly and ungenerous with our time, our attention.
Final thought – I’m starting to see red traffic lights and traffic jams as a form of ‘life tax’. This is part of our lives we pay to work where we work and to live where we live.
I suspect I’m being overtaxed.