“Attention” is in short supply these days.

According to one researcher, in just twelve years we’ve gone from being able to focus on a task for two and a half minutes to a mere 40 seconds. ¹ Our modern world is flooded with ads, apps, endless infotainment, and “bite-sized” everything you can think of. On a recent visit to our pediatrician, my husband pointed out something both of us found depressing: each frame of the squawking children’s show on the TV in the lobby lasted no longer than 3 seconds. 

If we don’t want to drown in this flood of stimuli our only option is to swim upstream. Most of us can’t relocate to a cabin in Siberia or a bungalow in Bali; we’re forced to improve the noise-to-signal ratio wherever we are. Doing this is both simple and challenging: we must develop our ability to pay attention.

By “attention” I’m referring not just to the people and situations that demand it, like an important conversation with your boss. I’m referring to something both broader and deeper: an ability to empty your mind of self so you can absorb the thing or the person in front of you.

The two popular terms these days are “mindfulness” and “being present.” While both are valid, they’ve become garbage can phrases that seem to mean different things to different people. I prefer instead the term “radical attention,” and I see it as more endangered than ever in our hyperactive times.

What is radical attention, then? For help, I’ll be turning to two of the 20th century’s greatest minds: Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch. 

Radical Attention is a Negative Effort

Simone Weil was a philosopher who devoted her life to political activism and spirituality, a somewhat unusual combination. 

In her short but rich essay “The Right Use of School Studies,” she argues that paying attention during your language or geometry class helps you become better at praying to God. This is because studying compels you to focus on something outside yourself.

Whether you’re any good at what you’re studying is secondary. If anything, Weil argues, it’s almost better if you’re not good at the subject you’re trying to master because the point is not to get better at it – the point is to learn how to pay attention. She describes it this way:

Attention consists of suspending our thought, leaving it detached, empty, and ready to be penetrated by the object; it means holding in our minds, within reach of this thought, but on a lower level and not in contact with it, the diverse knowledge we have acquired which we are forced to make use of. ²

When I lived in South Korea I worked 12-hour days (with midday breaks) at an English academy. In the evenings, after spending all day teaching English, I would sit down with my laptop and study Korean. Only by intensively reading children’s books and listening to elementary conversations about ordering beer and pizza did I start to grasp the Korean language. It was hard work, but I found it enjoyable because I was absorbed in the immediate. Weil calls this “negative effort”:

Attention is an effort, the greatest of all efforts perhaps, but it is a negative effort. Of itself, it does not involve tiredness. When we become tired, attention is scarcely possible anymore, unless we have already had a good deal of practice. It is better to stop working altogether, to seek some relaxation and then a little later return to the task: we have to press on and loosen up alternately, just as we breathe in and out.

The moment my Korean-studying brain started sputtering and mixing up the words for “today” and “tomorrow” I knew I had to pause. With practice, I could pay attention for longer periods and enjoy the process better. It’s the same for anything worthwhile in life: the moment we struggle, our attention is lost. We take a breather and try again later.

And if you don’t care about getting close to God, like Simone Weil? You can just as easily substitute “reality” or “things/people as they are.” 

Prayer, whether you’re religious or not, is a helpful form of meditation. The point is to care about something enough to give it your whole focus – first for a few moments, and then for longer periods. When you do this, you crowd out mind chatter and self-consciousness. Not only does this make you happier, it arguably makes you a better person.

Radical Attention Cures Us of Selfishness

Iris Murdoch, a British-Irish novelist and philosopher, also believed in the importance of attention. Her description is strikingly similar to Weil’s:

Attention is rewarded by a knowledge of reality. Love of Russian leads me away from myself towards something alien to me, something which my consciousness cannot take over, swallow up, deny, or make unreal. ³

When you’re giving your full attention to a Russian lesson or a geometry proof, there’s no room left for the ego or wandering anxious thoughts. When I was focused on my Korean language lessons I was “in the moment”, not thinking about the next morning and what I was going to wear or how I was going to get through my most dreaded class of 2nd graders. Modern psychologists have described this as being in a flow state, but Murdoch goes deeper than that.

In her words:

The love which brings the right answer is an exercise of justice and realism and really looking. The difficulty is to keep the attention fixed upon the real situation and to prevent it from returning surreptiously to the self with consolations of self-pity, resentment, fantasy and despair. ⁴

Fantasy, says Murdoch, is destructive because it means we’re focused on something that we’ve created in our minds, rather than an actual thing (or person). Paying attention requires humility and “unselfing”. It means not overlaying our commentary on what we see and hear, but just taking it in as it is – to receive new information.

Nowhere is this more important, I believe, than in relationships.

Erich Fromm, a prominent 20th-century psychoanalyst, uses the opposing terms “narcissism” and “objectivity.” These are different words from what Murdoch uses, but I believe it’s the same idea:

The narcissistic orientation is one in which one experiences as real only that which exists within oneself, while the phenomena in the outside world have no reality in themselves, but are experienced only from the viewpoint of their being useful or dangerous to one. The opposite pole to narcissism is objectivity; it is the faculty to see other people and things as they are, objectively, and to be able to separate this objective picture from a picture which is formed by one’s desires and fears. ⁵

How can we love someone if we can’t see them? When our assumptions, insecurities, and self-consciousness get in the way we make it difficult to grow a healthy relationship. The art of attention is crucial if we want a happy social life or love life.

And this is the problem I have with the terms “mindfulness” and “being present”: there are too many associations with being alone in a forest or on a mountain top. The most important scenarios for practicing the art of attention are the ones that involve everyday life and other people.

Attention is certainly not a “one-and-done” skill, like learning how to ride a bike. It’s a lifelong practice that requires the right attitude and the right motivation. Nothing about it is glamorous or dramatic, yet it’s the key to avoiding anxiety and existential despair.

If that causes you to feel any pressure, remember Weil’s comment that attention is a negative effort.  As soon as you find yourself struggling, take a break and try again later. Tiny gains build over time. Weil herself concludes with this hopeful reminder:  “We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them but by waiting for them.”

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Read Next: A Philosopher’s Guide to Lasting Love →

1. See here and here
2. Weil, S. (2018). Love in the Void: Where God Finds Us. Plough Publishing House.
3. Murdoch, I. (2001). The Sovereignty of Good (2nd ed.). Routledge.
5. Fromm, E. (2013). The Art of Loving. Open Road Media.