In The Principles of Psychology, William James said that “Everyone knows what attention is,” which is true enough, but like other deceptively basic concepts–such as consciousness, awareness, and health–attention is hard to pin down. Clear attention is the center of the “good life” bullseye as far as I’m concerned, since clear attention has been the basis of everything I value, including authentic relationships, integral health, and living a creative, meaningful life. And so I’m keenly interested in understanding attention, not only in terms of individual subjective experience, but also in terms of objective science and within the context of the “attention economy,” that webwork of misaligned incentives designed to keep us distracted, compulsively focused on glowing rectangles (as I am at this very moment!), and disconnected from our deepest, most vital humanity. In that vein, check out the links below for some people, articles, and resources that have captured my attention and interest:
