The Cost of Attention
January 9, 2020

     Attention.  To pay attention is first to attend.  It is to show up, reach out, lean in, be present. The down payment on attention is attendance.

     To attend is first to tend.  It is to care for, to look after, to watch over, to stand by – and to form the habit of doing so over time.  We tend gardens, campfires, sick kids and aging parents.  In Middle English, the word was tenden, meaning to stretch, spread, or direct oneself in a particular direction.  It‛s where we get our word "tendency" today – a pattern of repeated action.  The Middle English usage hearkened back to the Latin tendere, meaning to extend and stretch oneself purposely and with aim.  And to stretch oneself in this way requires the suppleness implied in the Latin root for all of these words, tener, meaning "soft."

     So to tend – and thus to attend and pay due attention – is to practice and to preserve in oneself a certain tenderness, literally.  It is to be curious, receptive, open, pliable, susceptible to new information, responsive to new circumstances.  At bottom, it is to be vulnerable, both to wonder, mystery, joy and love, and to change, to pain, to loss, to grief.

     No wonder we don‛t want to pay attention these days.  It comes at a high cost.