(Pay) Attention
Like many children, I found the world outside my classroom window much more exciting than my structured learning environment. Apart from the art supplies and classroom pets, most of the interesting things were outside or in a book, which is why the outdoors and the library were my favorite places. I was that daydreamer in class who often had to be drawn back to presence by my teacher’s voice.
The phrase “pay attention” is so common that I wonder if many of us ever consider its transactional nature. At its base level, to pay means to exchange money for some sort of goods or service, which is in itself the driving economy of most human societies.
Even when we exchange one good or service for another, it is brokered as payment. To pay attention, then, is to exchange something for something. In our world, material and social success is dependent upon our ability to pay attention to many things that are external to ourselves: the people, processes, systems, and structures that form our economies.
Pay attention! It comes as a demand, a warning, an admonition, or helpful advice. If we don’t pay attention, there’s a good chance we will “pay for it” in some negative way, perhaps in lost time or effort, or lost material or social capital.
For many (especially those of us with a particularly demanding super-ego), paying attention carries moral implications. To not pay attention is somehow bad, a failure. This can feel especially true for those who are described as being attention-deficient.
Attention, we know, is a matter of the mind, a mental activity. It is the process of turning and fixing our thoughts on something. It entails awareness, and is described as making a conscious choice to focus on something or someone, and willfully limiting the effect of other external stimuli. Attention is the foundation for learning, resourcefulness, and creativity.
So why “pay” attention when there is a more humane way to consider our capacity for mental focus?
Attention is related to attending, that is to be present or in service. There is a sense of care in this action that is not transactional; to attend literally means to stretch ourselves toward the object of our attention.
Attention brings us to presence. In being attentive we become present to whatever or whoever we are attending. To be present to ourselves, to another person or creature, to a place, project or task, is to stretch ourselves toward someone or something we value.
Attention is not transactional, it is caring.
Attention is a gift to give and be given.
Image: Readers enjoying the Eugene Public Library rotunda.
© Yvonne Wilber
