"Attention, on the other hand, just is life: your experience of being alive consists of nothing other than the sum of everything to which you pay attention." - Oliver Burkeman
"... religious but not spiritual." This concept intrigues me, especially as one can do something "religiously" and not necessarily refer to any religion, just a discipline like in religion.
I remember hearing in a podcast that beliefs are just thoughts you think often enough that you start to consider them true. I guess it follows then that practice is a kind of physical embodiment of the thoughts we've made into our personal doctrine.
I've been thinking recently on how I used to literally look up as a bored kid-staring at the ceiling, strange shapes on a doctor's waiting room wall, I still remember the clock vividly but what is vivid now? A little bit of boredom breeds a lot of creativity.
"Focus is the crucible of becoming." YES. This reminds me of another quote, "Don't let your distractions get in the way of your becoming". Which, nowadays, demands a huge effort of self-awareness and intention. Because in the end, people need to desire growth, to desire a life well lived. And is scarry how we see so many discharging this, getting into authomatism and admiting it. I have just excluded my Instagram account because I was feeling very disoriented, and so I needed a strong actitude to get away from something I already loath. And now I have so much time and mental freedom to focus on what makes life good. Is a peace that, unfortunately, we have to learn how to retain.
Beautifully written and deeply pertinent. I especially love the analogy to religion, in that repetition is a process of becoming. Faith is a mirror for the way we carry out every other aspect of lives, our relationships to others, and our discipline and devotion to various acts. I touch on very similar ideas in my own work. As a scholar of religion, I also wanted to add some reflections on the etymology and evolution of “religion,” which further support this point, particularly how it became not only a matter of repetition but also of binding.
This was a wonderful quote: “Religion, like the violin or dentistry, is a practice because it isn’t a one-time declaration, but a repeated discipline of paying attention.” It speaks to the most ancient and hard-wired notions of religion. In antiquity, religion was first and foremost a reference to ritual, or the maintenance of tradition. It was only with Christianity’s entrance into the Hellenistic world that there was a suddenly a radical break, wherein religion was not simply an act of retracing your ancestors’ traditions, but shaped by the declaration of a belief. We can examine this a bit and see how it ultimately traces back to *becoming* through practice, however.
That belief was independent of space and time, independent of ancestral practices:
“In the pre-Christian era Cicero provides an etymology of the term relating [religion] to relegere – to re-trace or re-read. Thus, religio involves the retracing of ‘the lore of the ritual’ of one’s ancestors. This understanding of the term seems to have gained provenance in the ‘pagan’ Roman empire and made religio virtually synonymous with traditio…For the early Christians, however, they seem to have been labelled atheists precisely in so far as they could not be seen as belonging to a recognizable traditio [...] In the third century CE we find the Christian writer Lactantius explicitly rejecting Cicero’s etymology, arguing instead that religio derives from re-ligare, meaning to bind together or link. Thus, for Lactantius, religio ‘is a worship of the true; superstition of the false.’” (Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial theory, India and ‘the mystic East’, Richard King, pp. 35–36)
Since the Christianized model of religion and religious identity became so centered around theistic belief over ritual, they were, ironically, considered atheists by pagans. I think of the Nicene Creed, and also of the Shahada in Islam, as defining declarations and examples of the radical break in (late) antique models of religion. In a way, you could say that the pre-Christian model of repetition (of ancestral practice) shows how *primeval* and instinctive it is to humanity. Rather than taking on a belief independently, people maintained identity through reiteration of a well-seeded system. This also found in non-western religions. It thus feels very powerful, somehow baked into our social evolution, to take on identity in this manner. Something that already exists also provides much more foundation to build off, and paying attention to that foundation gives more stable and sustained potency. Yet, I also think it is good to select a novel ideal or declaration of belief as a defining factor, and to structure new rituals and practices around this, as was the case in the evolution of religion.
Christianity and Islam also formed and prescribed ritualistic practices as they came into being, which, likewise, define the believer (fasting, prayer, pilgrimage, etc). This engendered the identity of each faith and helped them to materialize in the world. Materialization of belief is what makes our attention transformative, defining, and significant. Lactantius’ new etymology of “binding together” is so relevant here, because it is through *practice* that a group of people become bound together into one body, and it is through practice that a person becomes bound to their ideals.
Whatever we pay attention to, and practice, is what we *bind* ourselves to. Thus, worship truly defines what we become, as we become UNITED with that object of our attention. We can define and theorize on what we believe, but we must also put that belief into sustained action to become a true bearer of the belief. So (for example), a person who believes in being disciplined must repeat the acts of discipline to bear the fruits of it and to truly embody that identity.
“Focus is the crucible of becoming.” Yes! I’ll be chewing on that for a while! I’m inspired to set a longer-term goal than I usually do, to help train my focus and attention.
“Attention moves like a liquid, flowing from one thing to another like a pile of magnetic dust coagulating around a pole.” Poetic.
“The point of exercising focus is not perfection, what matters is the daily return and the refusal to let attention scatter.” I believe this to be called discipline.
You might enjoy related thoughts: “Dreaming is the opposite of attention. Dreaming is when we lose track of who, where, or what we are. Our attention dissolves. Attention is the sun, while dreaming is the moon.” and “Dreams rely on attention to make them a reality.” - https://maybegreat.substack.com/p/why-should-you-care-about-attention
"Attention, on the other hand, just is life: your experience of being alive consists of nothing other than the sum of everything to which you pay attention." - Oliver Burkeman
“Focus is the effort against spiritual collapse” - SO good. Thank you so much for this, already know I’ll be returning to it again to take notes!
"... religious but not spiritual." This concept intrigues me, especially as one can do something "religiously" and not necessarily refer to any religion, just a discipline like in religion.
I remember hearing in a podcast that beliefs are just thoughts you think often enough that you start to consider them true. I guess it follows then that practice is a kind of physical embodiment of the thoughts we've made into our personal doctrine.
I've been thinking recently on how I used to literally look up as a bored kid-staring at the ceiling, strange shapes on a doctor's waiting room wall, I still remember the clock vividly but what is vivid now? A little bit of boredom breeds a lot of creativity.
"Focus is the crucible of becoming." YES. This reminds me of another quote, "Don't let your distractions get in the way of your becoming". Which, nowadays, demands a huge effort of self-awareness and intention. Because in the end, people need to desire growth, to desire a life well lived. And is scarry how we see so many discharging this, getting into authomatism and admiting it. I have just excluded my Instagram account because I was feeling very disoriented, and so I needed a strong actitude to get away from something I already loath. And now I have so much time and mental freedom to focus on what makes life good. Is a peace that, unfortunately, we have to learn how to retain.
Also ‘religare’ – to re-bind, to bond , as for word “tradition”. Oh, love the language and its posibilities 🥰
If I had the time and patience to memorise every single line on this I would. Thank you for another amazing read, my dear Sherry
Beautifully written and deeply pertinent. I especially love the analogy to religion, in that repetition is a process of becoming. Faith is a mirror for the way we carry out every other aspect of lives, our relationships to others, and our discipline and devotion to various acts. I touch on very similar ideas in my own work. As a scholar of religion, I also wanted to add some reflections on the etymology and evolution of “religion,” which further support this point, particularly how it became not only a matter of repetition but also of binding.
This was a wonderful quote: “Religion, like the violin or dentistry, is a practice because it isn’t a one-time declaration, but a repeated discipline of paying attention.” It speaks to the most ancient and hard-wired notions of religion. In antiquity, religion was first and foremost a reference to ritual, or the maintenance of tradition. It was only with Christianity’s entrance into the Hellenistic world that there was a suddenly a radical break, wherein religion was not simply an act of retracing your ancestors’ traditions, but shaped by the declaration of a belief. We can examine this a bit and see how it ultimately traces back to *becoming* through practice, however.
That belief was independent of space and time, independent of ancestral practices:
“In the pre-Christian era Cicero provides an etymology of the term relating [religion] to relegere – to re-trace or re-read. Thus, religio involves the retracing of ‘the lore of the ritual’ of one’s ancestors. This understanding of the term seems to have gained provenance in the ‘pagan’ Roman empire and made religio virtually synonymous with traditio…For the early Christians, however, they seem to have been labelled atheists precisely in so far as they could not be seen as belonging to a recognizable traditio [...] In the third century CE we find the Christian writer Lactantius explicitly rejecting Cicero’s etymology, arguing instead that religio derives from re-ligare, meaning to bind together or link. Thus, for Lactantius, religio ‘is a worship of the true; superstition of the false.’” (Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial theory, India and ‘the mystic East’, Richard King, pp. 35–36)
Since the Christianized model of religion and religious identity became so centered around theistic belief over ritual, they were, ironically, considered atheists by pagans. I think of the Nicene Creed, and also of the Shahada in Islam, as defining declarations and examples of the radical break in (late) antique models of religion. In a way, you could say that the pre-Christian model of repetition (of ancestral practice) shows how *primeval* and instinctive it is to humanity. Rather than taking on a belief independently, people maintained identity through reiteration of a well-seeded system. This also found in non-western religions. It thus feels very powerful, somehow baked into our social evolution, to take on identity in this manner. Something that already exists also provides much more foundation to build off, and paying attention to that foundation gives more stable and sustained potency. Yet, I also think it is good to select a novel ideal or declaration of belief as a defining factor, and to structure new rituals and practices around this, as was the case in the evolution of religion.
Christianity and Islam also formed and prescribed ritualistic practices as they came into being, which, likewise, define the believer (fasting, prayer, pilgrimage, etc). This engendered the identity of each faith and helped them to materialize in the world. Materialization of belief is what makes our attention transformative, defining, and significant. Lactantius’ new etymology of “binding together” is so relevant here, because it is through *practice* that a group of people become bound together into one body, and it is through practice that a person becomes bound to their ideals.
Whatever we pay attention to, and practice, is what we *bind* ourselves to. Thus, worship truly defines what we become, as we become UNITED with that object of our attention. We can define and theorize on what we believe, but we must also put that belief into sustained action to become a true bearer of the belief. So (for example), a person who believes in being disciplined must repeat the acts of discipline to bear the fruits of it and to truly embody that identity.
Lovely.
An incredible read.
“Focus is the crucible of becoming.” Yes! I’ll be chewing on that for a while! I’m inspired to set a longer-term goal than I usually do, to help train my focus and attention.
Beautiful
“Attention moves like a liquid, flowing from one thing to another like a pile of magnetic dust coagulating around a pole.” Poetic.
“The point of exercising focus is not perfection, what matters is the daily return and the refusal to let attention scatter.” I believe this to be called discipline.
You might enjoy related thoughts: “Dreaming is the opposite of attention. Dreaming is when we lose track of who, where, or what we are. Our attention dissolves. Attention is the sun, while dreaming is the moon.” and “Dreams rely on attention to make them a reality.” - https://maybegreat.substack.com/p/why-should-you-care-about-attention
Love this!
thanks
“Religion, in its purest sense, is not about dogma, rites, monasticism, or indoctrination; it’s about attention.”
Excellent. Excellent as always, Sherry! 🍷