Fluent | #59
Fluent
I would love to live
Like a river flows,
Carried by the surprise
Of its own unfolding.
- John O’Donohue
I love short poems because they make me pay attention to sound. Each line has its own consonant landscape: Line one has liquid l’s, line two a buzzy v and w, line three soft r’s, and line 4 a hooty combination of w and l.
The vowels have a structure, too. When I sing, I sometimes practice a phrase with just vowel sounds to connect the breath. Trying that with here (in very un-scientific notation):
ah uh oh oo ih ai uh ih uh oh eh ee ai uh ai ee uh ih oh uh oh ih
This poem doesn’t “rhyme” in the traditional sense, but you can see they symmetry of the sounds: the switching of the oh and ih in the first two lines, the mirrored uh and parallel ee and ih in the final two. There’s a reason this poem is satisfying to hear. Even the fact that the first and last lines have more dark sounds like oo and oh and the middle two have more bright ih’s and ee’s make for a satisfying ebb and flow. Almost, if you’ll excuse me, like being carried by water.
This poem reminds me of this Ezra Klein interview of D. Graham Burnett, which I’ve listened to twice in the past few weeks.
In it, Klein and Burnett explore different ways we define and explain attention. Attention could be understood as unbroken focus, as open receptiveness, or as a suddenly triggered awareness. We might think of our attention as synonymous with “us,” a way of apprehending a coherent self. Or, we might imagine attention and the reverence it imparts as a kind of prayer.
I find each of these definitions compelling at different times for different reasons. It’s practical to talk about focus, receptiveness, and awareness. It’s philosophically stimulating to consider the implications of attention as identical to “Me.” And the idea of attention as prayer, well, I could write a whole separate essay on that one (and just might).
One of the points Ezra Klein makes is that although we’re not always clear on what exactly attention is, most of us have a sense that our attention isn’t healthy right now. I’ll speak for myself: my attention these days is flighty, scattered, stubborn, and uncontrollable. I’m in awe of my younger self, who would take notes in school all day, study through the evening, and then — for pleasure! — read a book into the night. Just an hour of that kind of attention would be aspirational today.
Towards the end of the podcast, Klein asks where someone seeking better “attentional health” might start. In response, Burnett shares Thesis 9 from the “12 Theses on Attention” (which he helped to edit):
Sanctuaries for true attention already exist. They are among us now, but they’re endangered. And many are in hiding, operating in self-sustaining, inclusive, generous, and fugitive forms. These sanctuaries can be found, but it takes an effort of attention to find them. And this seeking is also attention’s effort to heal itself.
I’ve often fantasized about retreating from the frenetic attention-demands of life. But these sanctuaries are about more than retreating. They are alive. They are wily and opinionated. And it’s not our job to create sanctuaries, it’s our job to discover them and keep them sacred.
My attempts to heal my attention thus far have been characterized by effort. I lock myself out of addictive social media, I white-knuckle a walk without looking at my phone. But what if that’s the wrong way to find sanctuary? What if instead of muscling sanctuaries into being, I could let myself discover them? To be carried by surprise and notice my own unfolding? At the very least, it sounds less exhausting.
Like a river flows,
Jess
I will be off Sunday after spending the week hiking with my family, but I’ll be back in your inbox on July 7.