Paying Attention

In any area of life, there is so much to be noticed by simply paying attention.

I've become a much better cook by paying attention to what I'm doing, and what the results of my actions are. Now I don't overcook my eggs anymore, and they're delicious every time.

I've become a better baker because I've learned how to feel what the dough is doing, and give it what it needs.

Watching my dog play with other dogs at the park, and letting him navigate his social interactions has made me a better dog parent, because I'm less worried about whether something bad will happen.

When my daughter is playing with a new toy, I want to watch her figure it out. When she's eating and learning how to chew and swallow, I observe what foods she struggles with. When she cries, I know whether she's in pain, tired, or just being silly because I've learned the differences. This makes me a better dad, and it makes me more in-tune to what her needs are.

In her book How To Do Nothing Jenny Odell writes about the term "attention economy", and how there are innumerable technological forces competing for our focus. Most of these aren't a net positive. In an act of intentional capitalist defiance, she started going to a park near her house to sit and observe, to see what she could see. She writes about how she began to identify the different bird songs:

What amazed me and humbled me about bird-watching was the way it changed the granularity of my perception, which had been pretty "low-res". At first, I just noticed birdsong more. Of course it had been there all along, but now that I was paying attention to it, I realized that it was almost everywhere, all day, all the time. And then, one by one, I started learning each song and associating it with a bird, so now that when I walk into the Rose Garden, I inadvertently acknowledge them in my head as though they were people: "Hi, raven, robin, song sparrow, chickadee, goldfinch, towhee, hawk, nuthatch..." and so on.

I like this quote from that chapter:

To hear is the physical means that enables perception. To listen is to give attention to what is perceived both acoustically and psychologically.

You can apply this practice to virtually any area of life, and be surprised by how much richness and depth there is in a place that was previously completely flat.

This is, in essence, the primary purpose of meditation. To notice what's already there, and enable yourself to focus on it for longer and longer periods of time. Applying this meditation inward is a profound practice, around which an entire philosophy (religion? ask the scholars about that one) has formed.

I do this very imperfectly, because it's honestly really hard. However, if I am able to remind myself of this perspective, there's never an excuse for me to be bored. All I have to do is stop and look or listen, and I will become engrossed in something.