Attention
The Coin of the Realm
If you haven’t met, allow me to introduce you to the philosopher and political activist, Simone Weil. In addition to her posthumously appreciated philosophical writings, the woman was a walking fountain of astonishingly apt aphorisms (isn’t alliteration fun?). Unlike Mademoiselle Weil who was very serious indeed.
Here’s the one that’s lodged in one of my more accessible files:
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
We all crave attention and, at the same time, are often surprisingly stingy with it. So many of our shared miseries would be soothed by some attention. Stand in any grocery store line for more than ten minutes and you’ll see little kids desperately trying to get the attention of whatever adult is ignoring them. Perhaps you’re different, but I often feel like that whining eight-year-old pulling on Mom’s arm and insisting over and over that we learned about how oxygen and hydrogen make water in school today. Mom? Mom!
Instagram replaces Mom
I don’t know what happened to the other whiny eight-year-olds who grew up before social media stepped in with its faux attention. I’m guessing they’re still in some dive bar, the kind that opens at 5am for the shaky old guys, whining to the barmaid because no one else wants to hear it…
