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…
Search Results for: attention
Is Tik Tok the heroine of social media?
I have an addictive personality. I wish that meant that people couldn’t get enough of me. It doesn’t. I’m the type of person that can’t get enough of a good thing. Once I start, I find it difficult to stop. Throughout my youth I’ve experimented, abused and misused substances. Alcohol and nicotine had significant places…
Writing online – and writing that matters
The g-spot is a distraction. That’s what I’ve been telling myself for the past six months, which is when I last published an article here. I’ve been focusing on completing the third draft of the novel I’m writing, on writing that’s ‘important’, which implied that the articles I wrote here were frivolous. However, if I’m…
Practicing in Public
I haven’t published an article for over 4 months. I had been neglecting my novel and decided to focus on finishing the second draft. Outside of work and my morning pages, the only writing that’s received my attention has been my novel. I finished the second draft on the 25th of February and since then…
What do Agatha Christie, social media and advertising have in common and what can they teach us about our emotional needs?
I recently re-read Agatha Christie’s ‘And then there were None’. The book has sold over 100 million copies since it was first printed in 1939. Only 5 other works of fiction share this accolade, and if you want to know which books they are, knock yourself out. So, why did the book do so well?…
Businesses have forgotten how to win
I was in a fist fight once. I was fighting Greg. Greg was bigger than me. But I was tougher, at least, that’s what I thought. I was confident I’d win the fight. Greg and met in the common room of our boarding house. It was late, after lights out. It was winter. We circled…
Check for teeth before deciding not to throw the baby out with the bath water
I drive to work most days. I always take the same route. On my commute I listen to audio books and don’t concentrate much on the road or the traffic. I’m on autopilot for most of the way. Everything is muscle memory. My brain is so used to the drive that it has decided my…
What throwing chairs has to do with escalation and art
“Hey, Gerrit, you’re a knob!” I’m in high school. The person calling me a knob is Mark. We’re friends. He’s walking to class. I feign indignation and decide to retaliate. I’m overwhelmed by the feeling that I need to make my retort larger than life. In a 100th of a second I go through my…
Books that changed me
I believe all books change us. But some books have a very immediate and profound way of changing how we think and see the world. I have read many other people’s ‘top X number of books’ lists. And for each list, there’s a theme or a genre which dictate what can be included and what…
The secret power of reading fiction
Fiction writers are philosophers and dreamers. While most non-fiction writers are people who have discovered something they deem important about the world that they think everyone should know. And then there are the non-fiction writers who author books so they can use them as business cards. They write books that they hope make them sound…