The marketplace of ideas suffers due to attention economy
The simple fact is: so many people want to be the center of attention because that is the most valuable place to be.
There was a time when artisans were held in high esteem, but now we have factories that mass produce goods. Farmers were necessary before commercial agriculture. We don’t seem to really need those professions anymore. Just following Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs will tell you that after physiological needs are met, we begin to notice psychological needs emerge. We want acceptance from our peers and we want to know that we can achieve something in life. Isn’t that exactly what fame provides, considering our current societal ideals?
The problem we find ourselves in is that we settled on entertainment as the reprieve from careers that suck the fun out of everything. Instead of having jobs we enjoy that give us a sense of being that change we wish to see in the world, we cling on to our insurance policies and 401k contribution benefits for fear of something bad happening in the future that will disallow us from ever having fun again. We focus a large proportion of our attention to the future. Still, we know we have to have fun, but the only fun around is to be distracted from reality… so we will pay college football coaches $9.1 million in salary. Sure, that’s Nick Saban, so I’m cheating (and I also can’t find a decent kicker to save my life). Well the next highest paid is Ed Orgeron, who got $6 million. He’s at least entertaining to listen to. And just think about the budgets you hear for how much movies cost to make when they proudly announce their gross profits. That’s what we pay for entertainment; that and our attention.
Back to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs- We got the food, water, shelter and security pretty well handled. Of course, not everyone. Maybe not even a majority. Still, we expect it, hell, we even feel like we deserve it. Our psychological health is fucked, especially now. This normal we landed on no longer makes any sense. We travel further away from what it means to be human and deeper into the world we continue to create. By manipulating our environment to suit ourselves, we forgot about balance. We can have whatever we want with the click of a button. We changed the DNA of food, we flattened forests to build permanent shelters, we made fake things out of natural resources and then threw them out to be processed by nature. We forgot about energy exchanges. We isolated ourselves from patterns in nature. We still aren’t listening to our instincts because we are still unfulfilled psychologically.
Self awareness is discipline that takes practice, such as the practice of meditation. The moment we recognize we are an observed observer- that we can turn attention onto itself- we open the possibility of self-actualization. We often do not acknowledge that as anything that should invoke a sense of wonder. In fact, we don’t find many of life’s great miracles to be all that special anymore. It’s just normal to us, so we have forgotten how incredible it is when we pay attention. When you bend down and appreciate the work that has gone into an anthill. When you go outside at night to look at the stars and in the dark spaces, you seem to find even more. We often like to think things happen to us, rather than understanding things are happening around us. Respect can only come from those who are aware of the impact they have on their environment.
To tie this all together, I can appreciate the desire to plan for whats to come, but it is important that we use our current collective energy to make an effort for the best possible outcome. That requires our presence in day-to-day moments of nothingness. Finding meaning in the little things, like the fact you are made of the same stuff as the stuff around you. Those same atoms in the air, are in you, they just arranged differently. That becomes more true the more fundamental you go. By paying attention to our own mind, we can have a direct affect on the collective of mind without the need for any validation.
In the age of globalization, we want to consider what the entire collective thinks about us because we use that information to judge ourselves. Our individual life has a ripple in the collective of souls and we know this, but we tend to only see from our own perspective still. When we feel something, our interactions are impacted. This is why it is very important to be self-aware. To have discipline in your ability to pay attention so that you can know how to receive what you truly need in order to be fulfilled. To observe yourself overthinking and release your attachment to outcomes and thoughts.
One of the implications of having commoditized attention is that you give none to yourself and then you go trying to get others to pay it to you. Provide something for them to pay for that is worth their attention, because we all have that ability. The truth is, you are inherently a miracle. You have a gift (maybe more than one) that balances with the rest of the collective. That purpose fulfills you even if it hasn't been exposed to you yet. Just because you don’t fit into a box called ‘normal’, that does not mean you aren’t worthy of being admired. If we all paid attention to ourselves, we would begin to realize we haven’t even listened to what lies under all the judgement that was developed to protect us. As with many functions that work, it has become too much of a good thing that leads us to self-doubt. Self-doubt that our true soul would never pay attention to.
