Attention and Fragmentation

End of June was my arbitrary deadline, which I always need to embrace imperfection and just put something out. So I’d like you to ignore the fact that it’s July 1st. Also while there’s only two segments, let the record show that my outline had three….. but then I wrote far too much about these first two themes and was too tired to continue (and I decided to not strain the patience of anyone gracious enough to read these).

Also, happy summer - times are clearly difficult, especially today’s news of the abhorrent and inhumane bill passing the Senate - but amidst the overwhelm I hope we can still embrace the unique joys of this season (e.g. cold watermelon on a hot day). May they sustain us in remaining engaged and taking care of one another.

I was about to begin this entry reflecting on a famous quote: “where you place your attention is where you live your life”. The problem is, there is no such quote. I’m either frankenstein-ing related statements or having a serious case of the Mandela Effect (I can see the visual: those exact words, displayed over an image of a sunset, attributed to a Mary-Oliver-of-sorts, clearly being co-opted for the purpose of Instagram likes). And here I am, similarly trying to take advantage of the quote, but it turns out I might be hallucinating. So as always, read at your own discretion.

Attention

Real or not, the essence of that quote captures something I find myself thinking about quiet a lot — it’s one of those “philosophical knots” I continually struggle to untangle. We obviously have a finite amount of focus and a limited time on this earth, so it’s hard to argue with the preciousness of attention. Just a quick Google search will return multiple nuggets of wisdom on this topic:

• Mary Oliver said "To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work” (maybe I’m just mangling this quote)

• Simone Weil described attention as the "rarest and purest form of generosity”

• Philip Zimbardo suggested that "we are what we pay attention to”

• Keanu Reeves suggested that the "simple act of paying attention can take you a long way” (this one is a bit unrelated, but I just couldn’t leave Keanu hanging)

I admire and appreciate these quotes, earnestly. But I often receive this type of wisdom in one of two ways:

1. Oh, what a beautiful reminder. Let me wiggle my toes, hear the birds, feel the cool breeze and the warmth of the sun.

2. Oh, fuck, what a daunting responsibility. How am I supposed to know what to pay attention to when everything can feel endlessly urgent and deserving? And if I am the sum of my attention, what an unfortunate blending of ingredients that would make me. Sure, many components are good, but put it all together and you’d likely want to throw up.

Trying to understand attention can often feel like a game of greased watermelon (you don’t have to have played to get the picture). It can feel like more you try and control it, the more you try and pin it down, the more it slips away. And what is “attention”, really?

This all brings to mind an Ezra Klein podcast from a few months back (Your Mind is Being Fracked) where he interviews D. Graham Burnett who studies attention and the negative impacts of our modern digital society. I’m interested in revisiting it because I remember it being one of the more insightful descriptions of attention, while also providing historical context for how we’ve come to understand and define it over time. I skimmed through the transcript to pull out a section that has stuck with me (paraphrased below)

Let me give you two recent theorists of attention, both very prominent, whose accounts of what attention is are absolutely contradictory, perfectly paradoxical, but sort of both, interestingly, true. Biz school theorists, Davenport and Beck, say attention is what catalyzes awareness into action. Recently deceased French philosopher Bernard Stiegler says attention is waiting, the exact opposite of catalytic triggering. And what are you waiting on when you attend to an object? He says you’re waiting on the disclosure of the long webs of connectedness that are in the object. And that sort of figuration of attention as a kind of an empty cup that we place between ourselves and the object of our attention…exquisitely invokes that idea of imminence, that kind of negative capability…. And so, when I have to talk about what I think attention is, I’ll often use that image. Attention is that kind of empty cup we can place between ourselves and the things we care about in the world and see what happens.

I find something moving and enticing about thinking about attention as an empty cup between ourselves and the world. It’s intentional, but not controlling. There’s a certain beautiful surrendering taking place, allowing life to unfold, opening oneself up (humbly) to be surprised by what might arise. This type of attention is an antidote to disenchantment. It’s also got me thinking about David Foster Wallace’s unfinished novel The Pale King, which explores the potential for transcendence found in the act of paying close attention — most especially to the mundane, as the novel is centered around an accountant who works for the IRS. I read this many years ago, so the details are fuzzy, but this theme has lingered in my mind. Here’s a teaser of an often cited passage (thanks to goodreads):

It had something to do with paying attention and the ability to choose what I paid attention to, and to be aware of that choice, the fact that it’s a choice… That there were depths to me that were not bullshit or childish but profound, and were not abstract but actually much realer than my clothes or self-image, and that blazed in an almost sacred way… and that these realest, most profound parts of me involved not drives or appetites but simple attention, awareness, if only I could stay awake

Fragmentation

A somewhat obvious transition from the topic of attention is the fracturing of our collective attention into endless media siloes that only appear to be proliferating into eternity due to an algorithmic content engine that we willing cede control to (I’m feeling light-hearted going into the summer!).

The choices are limitless, but paradoxically we seem to be doing less of the choosing. Perhaps this is a necessary byproduct of too much information. I stumbled upon about the concept of the Paradox of Choice where an abundance of options actually requires more effort to choose, which therefore leaves humans feeling unsatisfied with any choice made. So it makes sense that we’d prefer to avoid this burden by outsourcing the responsibility to 1s and 0s. We’re all too familiar with the overwhelming feeling of trying to decide what movie to watch while the pizza gets cold.

There are the obvious downsides to this severe fragmentation: polarization, misinformation, etc. But I also just feel a certain longing for collective experiences. Part of this is me romanticizing the past (queue old man saying “when I was young”), where it felt like there were more shared cultural moments. In my early teens or so, I remember this intense, particular comfort I’d feel watching David Letterman. It was late at night and yet it felt like everyone else was watching. I even felt safe, in a way, knowing that other families were also in their living rooms, with the lights on, splayed out across the carpet, watching the top 10 countdown of George W Bush being an idiot (oh how tame this all seems now). It was similar to how I felt watching Ruben Studdard on American Idol, waiting for the moment where I could run to the home phone to call in my vote — and knowing the next day all my classmates would be talking about their favorite performances. There appeared to be a central point of attention, even just briefly, where we all decided to indulge in a shared story (real or fiction).

I realize there’s magical thinking at play here. Culture is never homogenous, change often happens in the margins. And even the details of my experience were fantasy: I got to experience going to see a tapping of The Late Night in NYC and quickly realized (somewhat embarrassingly) that Dave was never actually awake when I would watch him at 11pm PT in my living room….

At 34, I’ve reached a certain acceptance of not being totally “with it” culturally. I don’t have TikTok (not a righteous brag, I actually feel like I’m missing out on some interesting stuff) and my knowledge rate of the Coachella lineup is steadily declining with each passing year. I’m not someone with my head-in-the-sand — I’ll sometimes read the culture pages in select magazines, listen to certain podcasts, scroll Instagram — but I can definitely feel like I’m somehow missing out on “the conversation”. But then I pause, because I actually don’t even really know what being “with it” means any more?

If there’s no center any more, what am I hoping to feel part of? We’re back to the greased watermelon. problem — I’m trying to grasp something that constantly slips away. But even more so, this desire to belong to some shared experience will likely never be fully satiated amidst our current digital media ecosystem, with the vast splintering of cultures. This is a new reality — not all good, not all bad, just different. But part of me will always have a certain melancholic nostalgia for the times when it felt like the whole world was sitting next to me, brimming with excitement, as we watched Dave run across that stage.

A closing quote

From Matt Haig (credit to Kyla Scanlon for referencing in her book In This Economy?)

If the whole planet is having a kind of collective breakdown, then unhealthy behavior fits right in. When normality becomes madness, the only way to find sanity is by daring to be different. Or daring to be the you that exists beyond all the physical clutter and mind debris of modern existence.

A parting song

During the COVID lockdown era I remember coming across Joe Walsh’s A Life of Illusion on some random playlist. It made me feel emotional, in a good way, I guess, or it just landed for reasons I can’t fully articulate (the magic of music). I’ve been revisiting it again, there’s something freeing, spacious about it, amidst lyrics about continual crisis. Or if a little too heavy, there’s always Rocky Mountain Way if you want to embrace your inner Joe Dirt.