These days, attention has become a type of currency. Noticing this or that, or being talked about as a famous personality, makes a difference. What is actually going on when we give our attention to something?
Christian Social Union (CSU) politician and Bavarian Minister-President Markus Söder uses social media like no other German politician. That’s why he was recently described (ironically) as a “socialist” by Der Spiegel.1 But those who “generate” attention for themselves also impose it on others. “Paying attention,” the verb, the activity, is something else entirely. I can’t fake “paying attention.” Well, I can, in a way, but it will only be a superficial attention that I will soon realize is not bringing me the result I had hoped for. True attention has the character of an “event.” Often, I don’t even know why I pay attention, why my attention has fallen on something, why it stays there, or keeps returning to it. I can also turn my attention back on itself and pay attention to my own attention, become conscious of it, let it linger. I have the ability to explore this ability of attention with a sense of wonder.
When I take notice of something, when my perception (whether sensory or, in the broadest sense, suprasensory, thinking perception) gets “hung up” on something, there is usually an occasion, a cause, a reason. These reasons can generate and produce real attention. They are “social media” of a completely different kind and outlive the twenty-four-hour news cycle. They don’t need to be added to a watchlist for later, and they endure beyond the random pressing of the remote or mouse when channel surfing or googling. They outlast the transfixed stare that just falls upon things, and instead, these kinds of reasons have us hunker down in a given context for a time without needing something to be presented to us in a flashy way. What catches our attention leaves a trail for us to follow. And we follow it, but wholly differently than we follow someone on Instagram. We don’t follow it immediately, but gradually, more and more. We initially took notice because, actually, quite the reverse had taken place: attention had fallen upon us. There is nothing that arouses our attention that we have not already aroused the attention of.
We live in hidden connections, and sometimes, when the time is right, the veil is lifted and we’re permitted insight, even given it as a gift. For example, when Rudolf Steiner had a clairvoyant experience in a train station waiting room at the age of eight, he became conscious of a spiritual world for the first time; he saw it and looked into it. But the spiritual world saw him, too. It perceived him; it became aware of him. In a similar way, the Gospels are primarily stories of people who suddenly became aware in their lives, who perceived something in Christ Jesus that made them think of him constantly, that made them seek him out, and made them tremble in his presence. They became preoccupied with something that they wanted to understand. Christ had also given his attention to them when he saw or looked at them, and his recognition of their destiny in their innermost being stirred something inside of them.
The Art of Paying Attention
We are usually quite grateful for the attention we receive. Sometimes it’s simply some small gesture, part of a social ritual, but that too has its purpose. When someone presents something to an audience, they usually thank them for their attention at the end. But they will only have been able to captivate and inspire their audience and move them deeply if they did a good job with their presentation—if they were quick-witted and really had something to say, something to give. And the viewers and listeners thank the presenter with applause for the attention they gave to them in return, by accepting them as their audience and then reminding them of something they perhaps had forgotten—a feeling, a realization, a connection.
Art draws our attention; art creates a spiritual and emotional context. It’s always the art of connection; it brings what is hidden to consciousness. The opposite of attention is therefore disconnection, which makes us feel lonely, as if no one notices us, no one pays attention when we say something. Perhaps we stumble over our words and, unfortunately, don’t immediately express ourselves very well, and so the attention of the group moves on to the next person; at best, we get a friendly nod or a sympathetic expression.
This may remind us of being in school, something most of us have experienced and often suffered through. At school, constant attention is required (with a few breaks). Pupils who are inattentive, who “can’t keep up,” who simply can’t remember what an accusative is or how to calculate square roots, are given “special” attention at faculty meetings. Students are closely observed, talked about, and encouraged. But if they’re “disruptive,” they’re punished, and notes are made in their school records. Perhaps it’s worth investigating the cause of this compulsive, disruptive behavior. Why do these children in particular want to constantly attract attention? Could it be the reverse, that the school or a specific teaching style is disruptive to the students’ souls or spirits?
Perhaps if these children and young people were given more caring attention, perceived more deeply—just once—they might immediately become attentive and find calm in the gratitude of being understood. What would a learning atmosphere be like in which the teachers, especially of the older classes, could also be recognized and supported in their innermost selves? A place where we avoid the incessant back-and-forth commenting through the usual channels about how impossible, incompetent, unfair, or overstressed the person at the front of the class is?
Inner Space Becomes Free
Disconnection is the sister of artificiality. When we are inattentive, loneliness increases. When we want to love economically, we drive love away. Those who devote themselves to someone with full, awake attention help the person by listening with complete openness and calm. Even if the other person has to start over and explain themselves a hundred times, or stumbles over their words a hundred times, or endlessly gropes for the one word that fits, the attentive listener does not stop helping them and can even help them find the right expression simply through their focused attention. When I give my utmost attention, I get a feeling of what my task is as a counterpart. I sense that something or someone needs me—not that they’re just using me. Often, it’s this very moment, when I become aware of my task, that the other person becomes aware of theirs.
When a person or event attracts a certain amount of public interest, it always tells us something significant; it is rarely just some gross machination or mere coincidence. Often, behind the appearance, there lies a deeper longing of human beings. Or perhaps the matter of interest touches on a topic that’s “in the air.” I can take an interest in everything that happens in life with a sense of calm and without prejudice, simply because it’s part of the time in which I live. It’s not a matter of moral judgment. But if attention is considered a currency, a medium of exchange, something that presents material value, at what point does it become inflationary? When does it expire, become useless, or become stale? When does the attention that someone receives and accumulates become embarrassing? Embarrassing for those who crave it and can no longer tell whether they receive it out of pity or genuine curiosity; embarrassing for a society being led down a path to a strange, arbitrary, amoral cage—an intimate but public prison. In this cage, to which we seem to have already resigned ourselves, is spiritual poverty still noticeable? It’s not as if we haven’t sometimes sensed it ourselves: as consumers of advertising or tailored, programmed attention that a humanlike robot bestows upon us, or as voters. We pay attention to things that don’t deserve our attention and thus lose sight of other things that do.
Perhaps in an economy of attention, we also need an ecology of attention —a hygienic approach to guiding the intention of our perception. The honest human confession, “I can’t remember everything,” may then be accompanied by quiet gratitude for very different beings, beings whose inner space becomes freed up again when we simply walk through a park in late summer. A clematis flower, a linden tree, a child, and an angel pay attention to everything. They pay attention because we’re there.
Translation Joshua Kelberman
Image The promise of the Mona Lisa: Endless attention or stoic disconnection? The most-viewed work of art in the world hangs in the Louvre in Paris. Photo: Emma Vendetta
