The Strangest Thing ...
Dear Friends,
The strangest thing happened on a recent cross-country flight…
I had come with an array of activities planned: a book to read, a computer for writing, and my phone for catching up on podcasts.
As I did my routine, I noticed the person next to me, a mixed-race man I am guessing in his late 50s, just sat there.
About an hour into the flight, he was still just sitting there. Two hours in, three hours in, and the man was just hanging out. No movie watching, no book reading, no opening his phone. He was just sitting there.
Then it hit me: this was actually not so strange a decade ago. It was more normal to contemplate, to be.
The Swap
Today, in many ways, we have swapped DEPTH for IMMEDIACY.
We know so much that is immediate (our most recent email, latest news, posts from our friends) but on the things that really matter, we can know very little.
As AI makes its way into our society, maybe the question we need to ask is not “What are we gaining?” but is instead, “What are we losing?”
What changes is technology bringing to our society and culture?
“Culture presumes an environment in which deep attention is possible,” writes the South Korean-born author Byung-Chul Han.
“Increasingly, such immersive reflection is being displaced by an entirely different form of attention: hyperattention.”
Hyperattention is where we are doing everything, except Being.
The Questions
How do we create conditions in our lives that lead to “deep attention,” as Han calls it?
How much have we traded being “constantly in the know” for the kind of depth that comes from stillness, contemplation, and non-doing?
If someone observed you throughout the day, what answer would they give about you?
What might it look like to choose depth, at least for today? How might you change your daily routine to make space for depth?
We each get to answer these questions for ourselves.
May you find your own conscious balance that best serves your life and your attention.
See upcoming events below.
Blessings,
SOREN
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The man sitting next to you on the plane sounds like me.