restacks

Self-Agency Mondays — curated by The Stackhunters™

This is a fascinating reframing of an old cliché, especially urgent in our age of infinite distraction.

Tracing "you are what you attend to" across neuroscience, Buddhist traditions, Stoicism, and Indigenous wisdom, Meghan reveals a powerful cross-cultural truth.

It's a timely invitation …

What is also becoming clear is how attention has been sliced up and minimized by research over recent decades to merely our capacity to give a particular response when prompted or to complete a task. This recasting of attention–what should be a true human superpower–has enabled our attention to become a commodity, bought and sold in the attention economy.

“You are what you eat” had a good run. Now, it’s time for another catch phrase to echo through our minds, homes, schools and communities.

It’s a provocative idea. Social media is provided to us in what they literally call “feeds.” It’s as if the companies know that what they are putting out is meant to be ingested by our brains. And then…what does it become?

Though I'd love to see my youngest expand beyond her devotion to all permutations of carb + cheese, I'd gladly trade the dream of a varied diet, if I could ensure she owned her attention. Maybe that's why I loved discovering how universal "you are what you attend to" really is.