attention
May 8, 2026
that if one looks up from their phone to swivel their head around on the subway is a trite observation by this point. phones are the means by which people fill their interstitial time. i’ve discussed how they allow us to block out thinking with near-infinite consumption before; however, i failed to address what is lost by the sacrifice of this time.
in leaves of grass, walt whitman expresses his love for humanity by noticing each’s grace in their everyday actions; bustling of the streets, hammer of the ironworker, fluttering sails of the boats entering new york harbor. with this the world comes alive, first in the individual sense as each person is animated with their spirit, then as a collective giving rise to an emergent society tied by interactions with each other. the world whitman lived in has not passed us by, though many cite a disenchantment with it regardless. all that has changed is our perspective.
on the most minute level love involves noticing: the way a hand folds perfectly inside yours, the idle look to the sky while thinking, the giving of a pastry on a bad day. whitman’s world is erotic; preceding that, it is brimming with primal love. with such attention to the world, how could he not love it? not just him; in midnight’s children, a character commits herself to an arranged marriage by noticing every act by her husband to find love for him.
this is all undone by taking our attention. when i run through my new neighborhood, i hear the haunting call of a bird – the exact species i do not know – of which another lived near my childhood home bringing me back to early days getting ready for school as the sun rose. i get to appreciate such beauty as i have nothing but my feet, thoughts, and the world to attend to: were i listening to music or on my phone i would have missed such rare nostalgia. simultaneously a thousand other moments: the sun rising over astoria as seen from high bridge park, the wide array of conversations to eavesdrop on as i run. all would be lost if handed to distraction.
the result of this lost attention is a lack of enchantment. this is not the cause of all ills and would be a reach to blame a societal malaise on this, but nevertheless an issue dear to my heart. going around day by day with a lack of positive emotion toward the minutiae of one’s environment is a sickness of the soul. to truly ground oneself in the world and its beauty requires one to orient themselves toward experiencing it.