Read something interesting today about "attention". It held that if one had a good intellect, had a wide history.....

[FadedMullet]

......of both experience and exposure to ideas, information, thoughts, history, and on and on, that one's thoughts and opinions were only as good as your ability to pay attention to the world around you. Paying 'attention" was the defining characteristic that made your thoughts meaningful and of value. I liked this in kind of a self-serving way because I see myself as one who always bases my opinions on a large repository of information, yet always with an eye to the reality of the world.

[EverHopeful]

1. Reminds me of a story about a large-audience event for a respected master

A student approaches the master after the event and asks him to write something of great wisdom to help him on his path.

The master writes, "Attention."

The student asks if he would please write more words, to give him more advice, so the master writes:

Attention
Attention
Attention

[FadedMullet]

2. Nice. That's why he is the master.

[niyad]

3. For some reason, this reminds me of an old Sherlock Holmes joke.

Holmes and Watson are camping. Holmes asks Watson to look up, and tell him what he sees. Watson talks about the beauty of the sky, the vastness of the universe, etc. Holmes finally breaks in and says, "Watson, someone has stolen our tent."

[zanana1]

4. I think that sums it up.

[Orrex]

5. I was giving a customer an in-home walk-through on an audio system.

She was writing down (almost) literally every word I said.

And one point I paused to share an anecdote about a similar system, which I prefaced with "You don't have to write this part down."

She wrote: "Don't have to write this part down."


I'm no respected master, but she was definitely a respected master of note-taking!

[paleotn]

6. Wait. What? Were you saying something?

Agreed, but it becomes harder and harder to stay attentive in an increasingly wired and fractious world. Just the sheer volume of what's going on. Sifting through what's important and what's mere fluff can be difficult.

Many, if not most of Donnie's outrages are just fluff. Case in point, his name on the Kennedy Center is easily fixed. A couple of maintenance guys, a few hours work, and it's done. What he did to the East Wing is certainly a different story, and metaphor for what he's doing to constitutional norms and stretching exec. power beyond its envelope. That's the important stuff and the question is, can that damage be fixed and how? Outlawed by a future Congress maybe. Going to be a hell of a clean up job. That's what I'm paying attention to.