a moment of attention

Richard Lanham says that, in an environment where information is ubiquitous, the real currency is attention. Ira Shor says that one of the impediments to critical consciousness is the acceleration of mass culture. In other words, reflective thought is hindered by the sheer pace and amount of distracting stuff going on around us.

So it’s odd to be in a place where people momentarily ignore the gigantic press of accelerated, saturated culture, and just listen for a few minutes. The effect, on me, is melancholy, and I still haven’t quite figured out why. Tonight it was a reading by several talented grad students in UW’s creative writing program. Maybe 30 people were there; not a bad turn-out. And we sat there for about an hour-and-a-half, just listening. What is it about these moments of attention? How rare it is that I notice myself paying attention. How rare it is that I choose to give my attention fully to some task. How rare it is that the task at hand creates something meaningful, something more substantial than a nut or bolt to keep the mass machinery operating.