It’s not as easy as it used to be.  Today, I would like to explore some of the reasons I feel that way and prepare for an essay in which I describe a few of the things I have done to adapt to it.

I call it “paying attention” because I have for some years, treasured the focus that “paying” brings to the idea.  We pay. It costs us.  The metaphor asks us to think about what we get in return for our “payment.”  And lest you think that the problem could be solved by just saying “attending” rather than “paying attention,” I regret to say that it is not a problem that can be solved that way.  The Latin tendere means “to stretch” and adding ad- to the word, (ad-tendere) gives it the sense of “to stretch toward,” which sounds effortful to me.

Picture yourself stretching toward something.  Your desire to grasp it (the object) is naturally opposed by gravity [1] and that is why it costs you to stretch toward, i.e. to attend, i.e. to “pay attention.  That is, in fact, my experience of coming into contact with someone’s narrative about what has happened over the course of the news cycle.  It costs.  Seeing the news costs me more than reading the news, but that’s just me.  I respond to meanings, like everyone else, but I also respond to images.  The negative ones “cost me more” than I am willing to “pay.”

I do, nevertheless, attend to (read) the news.  I will say now that the reason I am establishing this fact—I

do read the news—is so I can consider some of the ways in which I have tried to reduce the cost.  Someone will say that I could reduce the cost even more by not reading the news at all.  That is true, but not knowing the information that I learn in my reading bears other costs, and I am not willing to pay those either.

First, I am a citizen of the United States.  I hold the status that Milton Mayer, the Quaker journalist, called “the highest office in the land.”  I do have some obligations therefore.  I am obligated to play what I think is my part in the governance of the country.  I am always a little nervous about using the language of obligation when I cannot say clearly to whom I am obligated. [2]

Nevertheless, I recognize an obligation to be a part of the governance of the nation—as the Constitution specifies—and that requires that I know some things.  Beyond that, and much clearer in my mind, is the obligation I owe to my fellow citizens, both those who see matters as I do and to those who do not.  To some I owe understanding and support; to others, I owe understanding and opposition.  You see the common element there.  That is why I attend to the news. 

But beyond that, I have preferences for the conduct of the public’s business.  More vigorous words than “preferences” could be used—commitments, demands, causes—but I want to keep “preferences” even though it forces me to say silly-sounding things, like that I have a “preference for social justice.”  I don’t feel that I have given away anything of value by starting with preferences.  It is the preferences that the commitments are built on and the commitments that the public actions are built on.  So I’m OK with “preferences.”

And finally, even beyond that, I have obligations to my fellow citizens, both those in the large collective noun we share and those I see and talk with daily.  I need to know things to cooperate with the larger category and to interact with the smaller category.  

So not knowing what I need to know is not an option for me.  I am reminded that in ancient Athens, the population was divided between those who took part in the public affairs of the state (citizens) and those who led entirely private lives.  The Greek word for that second category of people was idiotēs.

If you recognize the idio- in there, it might remind you of “idiosyncrasy,” and it should.  The idio- is the same.  It means “one’s own;” private.  The idiotēs of Athens were private ONLY.  I don’t want to do that.

That brings me to the lip of the next topic, which is how to reduce the cost of “paying” attention.  It will require a distinction between attending to and attending for.  The latter is the heart of my solution to the problem.

[1] This sets up for a pun about the gravity of the news these days, but that is not where I am going.

[2]. I reject the idea of being obligated to any kind of “what.”  The only way I would say I am obligated to “it” is if the “it” is the name of a collection of persons, in which case, “it” is only shorthand.