Our Contested Attention

PART 1: PAYING ATTENTION

A song from my youth has been coming to mind and as I listen it shifts and realigns me effortlessly to a more gracious cheerful inward rhythm. It’s a song about pace and attention and the difference that slowing down and paying attention can make. We live in a world of hyper activity, information overload, and the need for speed, productivity, and performance. Pressure to the max. And it’s costing a lot as we rush through days and nights taking care of business, out of step with a healthy rhythm and pace of life.

Speaking of attention and cost, have you ever noticed that we don't say that we give attention, or have attention, but that we pay it. How telling that is. Genuine attention always costs something. And I’ve noticed that when distractions abound, it can feel like we can’t afford to pay the cost of attending well. Herbert Simon, an economist and cognitive scientist, coined a now-famous observation that "a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention". Meaning, the more there is to attend to, the scarcer our capacity to attend well becomes. This is not a new observation, but it seems very apt in describing how things are right now. In the midst of all that life throws at us, it’s easy to lose something that’s vital to a flourishing human life, a flourishing life in God.

 Attention requires a kind of triage.

If we want to pay attention we will need to practise triage. We might think of this term in relation to a hospital setting where people and problems are sorted to decide which ones are most serious and need attention first. But we can apply it to all of life, and it can be likened to discernment. In order to pay attention well we will need to practise discernment, and this is the first cost: the cost of narrowing to focus. But narrowing alone isn't attention. Plenty of us can narrow our focus onto a screen for hours without ever really attending to anything. Real attention needs something else too, engagement. Engagement invests things like interest, curiosity, questions, considering, seeking clarification, and really listening. To make that investment we’d better have discerned value and priority. It’s worth it because engagement is an investment that offers good returns.

 When we pay attention, triaging well to focus a priority and invest engagement, there’s an exchange that can take place. What, or who, we’re attending to, begins to open to us and offer something back. But the fact is attention, focus, and engagement open our awareness to see, feel or experience what was always there, but we had missed before. There’s definitely something in the story of Moses and the burning that connects here. If he hadn’t turned to pay attention to what he’d glimpsed in his peripheral vision. If he hadn’t turned aside, narrowed to focus, and engaged with interest, he’d never have realised he was standing on holy ground in the presence of God. He’d have missed a divine encounter that significantly altered the meaning, purpose and direction of his life.

Pause and Ponder:

Is there something or someone in your life worthy of more attention, focus and engagement right now? As you become aware of that, consider what it might mean for you practically to ‘turn aside’ and pay attention?