For attention has become a critical term at the center of a multitude of social issues and human concerns. We of the elder generation are disposed to worry about the fragmented minds of the younger. We wonder if texting-while-viewing-while-talking-while-eating and never being in the same place at the same time may be having a deleterious effect on the young. Are they incapable of concerted focus? Are they unable to sit and think? Have they been driven (by distraction) to distraction?
And ourselves, those who were educated before the advent of the purportedly deracinating Internet—how does it go with us? Are we slowly losing the coherence of mind we once had? (We did have that, right?) Are we immersing ourselves too far deep into the land where Whirl is King, and slowly becoming distracted citizens of that sadly confused and confusing domain? Have we lost our ability to pay attention? Are we, too, going nuts?
Click the link to see more: IASC: The Hedgehog Review - Volume 16, No. 2 (Summer 2014) - Pay Attention! -Points:
- “Paying attention is not unrelated to discharging a debt, to offering tribute, to giving the entity that demands the attention something akin to cash.”
- “…the deep opposite of attention isn’t distraction, but absorption.”
- “Happiness is losing yourself in something that you love and that will also, in all probability, come to benefit others.”
- “…distinguish between being absorbed and being mesmerized.”
That last point is important. Paying attention or being absorbed isn’t the same as being entranced by a TV show.
