When people talk about the value of paying attention and slowing down, they often make it sound prudish and monk-like. But we shouldn’t forget how interesting and overpoweringly pleasurable sustained attention can be.
Wonderful piece Henrik. An extension thought: the type of attention matters and changes how information is processed, like attentive consumption vs creation.
Having played piano for many years, I realised that when I listen to a new piece, my mind compresses the music to understand it. The notes and rhythm blend together because there’s not enough mental bandwidth to process everything.
But by learning to play the piece, your mind gets better at comprehending it. It's like the music flows through your brain in a laminar, rather than turbulent, flow. Each note becomes crisper, each harmony more intertwined.
Every time you engage with a form (art, architecture, music, sports, your lover's face), your capacity to experience it increases as the information is more fluent in your head. A chef can break down 'yummy' into the swirl of different spices, an engineer can appreciate the marvel of how a tower stands.
Isn't it wonderful that engaging with the universe leads to a more beautiful life?
Too many novel stimuli make it near impossible to remain attentive to a single purpose. The incessant context switching prevents attention from ever breaking below the surface. I have to remind myself of this when I catch myself doom scrolling. It feels ok in the moment, but once I break out I'm left with a static buzzing through my head.
Great essay. The bit about cortisol was particularly enlightening.
Thinking about this kind of attention makes me think immediately of Thoreau's Walden. He spends pages and pages describing the details of things like mud thawing, or bubbles forming in layers under ice on a pond. It feels like a meditation just to read it.
Verne is similar, like with his lists of species of fish in Twenty Thousand Leagues. Not quite as meditative though.
Curious about the dyadic case: is co-attention necessary—and to what effect? When two people sustain attention on each other for 20–30 minutes, do you see co-regulation (breath, pulse, gaze) and a blooming closeness at arm’s length?
Deeply insightful about the underutilized enchantment of normal, ordinary occurrences being anything but normal and ordinary once we stop and immerse ourselves in paying attention to complexity. I can’t wait to read more!
This article reminded me of the aesthetic philosophy of Utpaladeva (c. 900–950 AD) and the Hindu tradition of non-dualistic Shaivism where unity with Shiva (God, the cosmos) may be achieved through a beatific vision the beauty of nature, a manifestation of the beauty of Shiva.
But such visions are rare because it is difficult to break free from everyday sense-experience with its endless succession of unsatisfied cravings and desires. However, through the aesthetic response triggered by the beauty found in a great work of art, the spectator loses his individual spatial or temporal awareness. He achieves a complete ecstatic immersion and a union with the Divine through the door of sense-perceptions.
Thus art can be a road to enlightenment, like meditation.
I have been thinking a lot about this essay as in how can I make sure to loop more on the things I do want to grow and to reduce looping on the ones I find rather dangerous to evolve. I keep getting back to the first word. Why do you think "almost"?
This captures something I’ve noticed too: attention isn’t just focus, it’s an amplifier. Whatever we sustain, whether joy, fear, music, or art, loops back into itself until it reshapes our inner landscape. In a way it is the opposite of the attention economy, which thrives on scattering us before anything can bloom. Letting attention cohere feels like one of the few antidotes to drift in modern life.
I would say that focusing on one's emotions during an anxiety attack actually alleviates the attack, because you become unmoored from the stressor. It is the focus on the object causing the anxiety that worsens it, because the object is more difficult to change. Sure, you can try to view the stressor from a different perspective, rationalize it as benign, but it's easier to modulate your emotions.
The part in the beginning about the various overlapping systems of hormones and bodily cues/cycles with different half-lives is interesting. I wonder if there are undiscovered consciousness cycles with very long half-lives, upwards of weeks to months to years, which, if synced with lower order ones, cause a feeling extreme satisfaction, eudemonia. There is nothing quite like finishing a very long project, maybe there is something under the hood to explain that feeling that science hasn't measured.
Henrik, my favorite mornings are those that begin with reading your essays. Perhaps I should make this a ritual!
Thank you! 🙌🏽
Wonderful piece Henrik. An extension thought: the type of attention matters and changes how information is processed, like attentive consumption vs creation.
Having played piano for many years, I realised that when I listen to a new piece, my mind compresses the music to understand it. The notes and rhythm blend together because there’s not enough mental bandwidth to process everything.
But by learning to play the piece, your mind gets better at comprehending it. It's like the music flows through your brain in a laminar, rather than turbulent, flow. Each note becomes crisper, each harmony more intertwined.
Every time you engage with a form (art, architecture, music, sports, your lover's face), your capacity to experience it increases as the information is more fluent in your head. A chef can break down 'yummy' into the swirl of different spices, an engineer can appreciate the marvel of how a tower stands.
Isn't it wonderful that engaging with the universe leads to a more beautiful life?
lovely article!
small typo here: "On the other hand, there is also *be* an upper limit"
thanks!
Too many novel stimuli make it near impossible to remain attentive to a single purpose. The incessant context switching prevents attention from ever breaking below the surface. I have to remind myself of this when I catch myself doom scrolling. It feels ok in the moment, but once I break out I'm left with a static buzzing through my head.
Great essay. The bit about cortisol was particularly enlightening.
Thinking about this kind of attention makes me think immediately of Thoreau's Walden. He spends pages and pages describing the details of things like mud thawing, or bubbles forming in layers under ice on a pond. It feels like a meditation just to read it.
Verne is similar, like with his lists of species of fish in Twenty Thousand Leagues. Not quite as meditative though.
Curious about the dyadic case: is co-attention necessary—and to what effect? When two people sustain attention on each other for 20–30 minutes, do you see co-regulation (breath, pulse, gaze) and a blooming closeness at arm’s length?
What happens when you put sustained attention to attention?
/Brain explodes/
This winderful essay?
That's called meditation
Deeply insightful about the underutilized enchantment of normal, ordinary occurrences being anything but normal and ordinary once we stop and immerse ourselves in paying attention to complexity. I can’t wait to read more!
I like to think of myself more as a plant than an animal when coming up with metaphors. this is another good one, thank you (:
This article reminded me of the aesthetic philosophy of Utpaladeva (c. 900–950 AD) and the Hindu tradition of non-dualistic Shaivism where unity with Shiva (God, the cosmos) may be achieved through a beatific vision the beauty of nature, a manifestation of the beauty of Shiva.
But such visions are rare because it is difficult to break free from everyday sense-experience with its endless succession of unsatisfied cravings and desires. However, through the aesthetic response triggered by the beauty found in a great work of art, the spectator loses his individual spatial or temporal awareness. He achieves a complete ecstatic immersion and a union with the Divine through the door of sense-perceptions.
Thus art can be a road to enlightenment, like meditation.
I have been thinking a lot about this essay as in how can I make sure to loop more on the things I do want to grow and to reduce looping on the ones I find rather dangerous to evolve. I keep getting back to the first word. Why do you think "almost"?
Worship is attention. That which you divide the most attention to is that which you worship.
This is gorgeous.
Henrik, this piece is wonderful. I keep coming back to it and with each read uncover a new insight wrapped within your words. Thanks for sharing :)
This captures something I’ve noticed too: attention isn’t just focus, it’s an amplifier. Whatever we sustain, whether joy, fear, music, or art, loops back into itself until it reshapes our inner landscape. In a way it is the opposite of the attention economy, which thrives on scattering us before anything can bloom. Letting attention cohere feels like one of the few antidotes to drift in modern life.
I would say that focusing on one's emotions during an anxiety attack actually alleviates the attack, because you become unmoored from the stressor. It is the focus on the object causing the anxiety that worsens it, because the object is more difficult to change. Sure, you can try to view the stressor from a different perspective, rationalize it as benign, but it's easier to modulate your emotions.
The part in the beginning about the various overlapping systems of hormones and bodily cues/cycles with different half-lives is interesting. I wonder if there are undiscovered consciousness cycles with very long half-lives, upwards of weeks to months to years, which, if synced with lower order ones, cause a feeling extreme satisfaction, eudemonia. There is nothing quite like finishing a very long project, maybe there is something under the hood to explain that feeling that science hasn't measured.