Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begin to loop on itself
192 comments
·September 4, 2025causal
duttish
This is how I started working out regularly. "I can quit 5 min after warming up".
Five minutes after warming up I've changed, in the gym and a couple of sets in. I quit maybe 1/20 sessions, and it's shrunk more over the years since, but it was an easy way to fool my brain.
I'm guessing this is different because the main threshold is starting to do the thing. Once you've started it's much less mental effort to keep going and just do the full workout.
thewebguyd
> "let's give this my full attention for just 5 minutes, and if I still don't want to do it we can move on".
I have to use this trick to help manage my ADHD. Of course, just actually starting for 5 minutes is a challenge in itself but while medicated at least I can. Giving myself a time limit as an easy out works wonders, and after 5 minutes I'm probably going to keep going.
_boffin_
Here’s a fun one I given many years ago: I had a friend/client who was professor. We’d talk about ADHD, issues, and other things. One day, I came to him saying, “a lot of times, I’ll read a paragraph 20 times, but not remember a single thing from it. It’s drudgery and almost painful to read it. It’s a fight.”
His response was profound to me: “instead of you reading it how you are, try to understand why the author spent their life, time, and effort to learn that material and then convey it to you. What made them fascinated in it?”
By flipping the script… changed my world
mhurron
I wish you the best with that, but by the metric of 'if I can do it for 5 minutes I can probably keep going because I wanted to do it' would mean that I don't want to do, very literally, anything.
To be fair, I only just recently (past month) talked to my doctor and started treating it properly so I'm still in the tweaking the dosage phase.
jnovek
Another thing to consider is that, once you are medicated, you have a whole new set of skills to develop.
I remember when I started taking ADHD meds and I was like “wow I can focus now” and proceeded to focus with all my might on the wrong thing.
metabagel
Could it be that something other than ability to focus is blocking you? Fear of failure, for example?
Suggest thinking as if you already accomplished the thing and then work backwards from there. Start with a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction, because it’s already done. Now, you just need to do it.
Or whatever approach works for you. Everyone is different.
otikik
Hyperfocus is an interesting one. You can now focus on a single thing so profoundly that you forget to eat or sleep. Slight caveat: you don’t have control over what you hyperfocus on.
metabagel
Suggested books which I found helpful. There may be audiobooks available, if that is more your thing.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/learned-optimism-how-to-change-...
https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-now-habit-a-strategic-progr...
DrewADesign
Mitigation strategies start to look a lot different when you have a better sense of adjusted capability. I expected it to be something I felt when I started a task, or how I felt about starting tasks— like if you’re stronger it’s easy to sense that you can pick up heavier objects, and picking up heavy things doesn’t feel as burdensome. That’s not what it was like for me. It still feels just as shitty and annoying to do things I don’t want to do, but once you realize how much better you are at staying on task and doing the work to completion, and doing things that might have been a cognitive challenge before, giving up/avoidance doesn’t feel like the only choice anymore.
abustamam
How do I get diagnosed with ADHD? My sister just recently got diagnosed in her 40s (in another country though) and I'm like, well maybe I have adhd too, but I don't know who to ask, and the online quizzes all seem set up to sell you stuff.
SequoiaHope
I took an online quiz, then told my doctor, then my doctor administered an online quiz to me and subscribed me Adderall. It has taken me a year and a half to make sense of what Adderall means to me but it’s quite helpful. I’m 40. I had never had stimulants like that before! Be careful with the euphoria. For a while my dose was too high and it felt great at first but I crashed on the weekends. Now I keep my dose lower and it’s helpful without being too much. Mindfulness and self control are important here.
mrexroad
“Action comes before motivation.”
I’ve repeated this to my kids to the point it’s a meme in our house. I find it’s a nice short circuit to “I have no motivation”, b/c “Great, do {thing} and you’ll find the motivation!”
rabbitlord
Great suggestion. "Just do it" usually just works.
abustamam
That's interesting. I really enjoy playing video games, when I have time. There are games that I objectively find fun, like recently, Clair Obscur Expedition 33. But oftentimes I'd play with my full attention, trying to absorb the beauty of the world and the music, and then I take my phone out during a loading screen and now I'm "second-screening" with my news feed or HN. And I'm still enjoying the game itself, but I feel like I'm robbing myself of the experience because I am not giving it my full attention.
I try not to second-screen when watching movies or TV, and I'm pretty good at it. I know it's a very common thing for people to do these days and it honestly kinda bugs me because at least for me, TV and movies are a shared experience, but video games, at least the ones that I play, are almost always solo experiences.
Anyway, I feel like I just diagnosed myself with ADHD in writing this comment.
vachina
If you’re second screening a movie you need to stop that movie and delete it from your library.
ants_everywhere
> Reminds me of the trick of telling yourself "let's give this my full attention for just 5 minutes, and if I still don't want to do it we can move on". I pretty much always end up wanting to keep doing that thing.
Inertia is a good mental model for attention in ADHD. I sometimes tell people that my attention is like a large truck. It can be hard to get it started and up to speed, but once it's up to speed it's hard to stop.
Spending 5 minutes on something is a way of forcing yourself to get started. Once you're up and running it's will be hard to break your attention. For that reason, it's important to choose carefully which things you deliberately spend attention on if you have ADHD.
superkuh
It was such a delight to see someone finally getting the dopaminergic function right and not confusing dopamergic populations activity with perceptions of pleasure, but instead pointing to the modern understandings: they predict future pleasure. Glutamate (in the shell of the nucleus accumbens) is the real "pleasure" chemical (among all it's various other uses).
mettamage
I think they showcase the anticipation reward no? For example, a near-miss with slot machines spikes higher dopamine than actually hitting the magical 777. Can’t find source atm
minism
This was a great essay, and as someone who struggles a lot with hyperawareness OCD, I cried reading it.
First on a positive note, the example about attention on sex and arousal feeding back on itself and deepening the experience is well described and easy to relate to. But I think the "deepening an experience through attention" phenomenon applies in so many other domains as well - Sustained attention on a film or video game world, deep uninterrupted creative work for many hours, etc. It's a wonderful positive feedback loop.
It is somewhat similar to how when sitting in silence outside for a long period of time you begin to become aware of more and more subtle details of the experience that weren't immediately accessible. Almost like you're turning up the sensitivity knob on things.
Unfortunately as the author describes, the attention feedback loop can become unpleasant and even torturous when it is directed on negative sensations. For me it has been various things at different stages of my life - muscle tension, breathing, eye floaters in my vision, etc. The same process plays out - Sustained fixation of attention on the sensation increases your sensitivity to it, meaning you notice it more and it bothers you more, meaning you pay more attention to it, and it gets out of control.
The difficulty I experience is that this attention is unwanted and yet I feel my mind focus on it almost automatically. Paradoxically, most of the treatment/recovery advice for this type of OCD is to allow these sensations to be there without rejecting them, which I'm still working on.
But it is helpful to see the positive flip side of the coin too - Our minds are capable of deep focus and deep attention, which can increase sensitivity and let you see increasingly subtle details of experience, making you a better appreciator of art and life, a better creator, a better listener and friend, etc.
joquarky
I can relate to the muscle tension. No amount of stretching is sufficient, and ignoring it seems to cause it to grow in intensity.
jpopesculian
Reminds me of The Disappearance of Rituals by Byung-Chul Han. It's difficult to succinctly state the premise of the book, but in a way, I think its about structuring time and attention vertically on top of itself instead of horizontally across moments and subjects
maroonblazer
What serendipity! The latest episode of "Philosophize This!" is titled "The Philosophy of Zen Buddhism - Byung Chul Han".[0] I'd never heard of him before. Apparently his book "The Burnout Society" is recommended reading.
[0]https://open.spotify.com/episode/3jdvGsEdrpEEjMBJG5oRaH?si=g...
bobson381
Philosophize this has been on such a cool track out of western canon and through more mystic/nondual flavored stuff, in a way that builds off of itself. I got Deleuze-pilled a few years ago, and have had fun listening to the whole progression lately. Interesting dovetails with the Alan Watts marathon I did for like a year or two haha
wry_discontent
I've struggled to read Deleuze in the past; do you have recommendations? I find summaries interesting, but the texts themselves impenetrable.
prrar
That's a great episode, thanks for your suggestion.
piva00
Off-topic: have you enjoyed "The Disappearance of Rituals"?
I went on a binge of Byung-Chul Han last year, reading "The Crisis of Narration", "In The Swarm", "Psychopolitics", and "The Burnout Society". Really enjoyed all of them, and given how dense it can be I set myself to read them at least twice which I'm just finishing, was on the lookout for what else to read from him and was thinking about "The Disappearance of Rituals" as the next one.
peterldowns
Given your interest in BCH, you may enjoy Non-places: An Anthropology of Supermodernity by Marc Augé. BCH draws on a lot of Augé's ideas from this book in Psychopolitics. It is obtuse and either poorly-translated or badly-written but the ideas are excellent.
triceratops
I wonder if this explains the popularity of It's a Wonderful Life. The story is well-known at this point. It was a box-office flop when first released, and fell out of copyright because the studio couldn't be bothered to renew it. As a result it played repeatedly on TV around Christmastime every year. The repeated exposure to this film, presumably also associating it with other pleasant holiday memories for audiences, transformed its reputation. To the point that it's now considered one of the best films of all time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_a_Wonderful_Life#Recept...
monktastic1
Huh, I would guess there's a different mechanism at work. In my experience, movies playing on TV during the holidays tend not to get people's deep, persistent, undivided attention.
hinkley
Part of the reason why it was on 24 hours a day for 20 years is that something got fucked up with the copyright and TV channels were using it as free filler.
When I was very young it merely competed with Miracle on 34th Street. And then it was just fucking everywhere. I’m not sure I’m entirely over hating it for never being off the air. Even though it’s been 15-20 years since they stopped playing it every hour of the day.
triceratops
The Shawshank Redemption has a similar story. Didn't do well when released. Its video release fared a little better, maybe because people could re-watch it at home. Then Turner picked up TV distribution rights cheaply and showed it again and again.
Now, just like It's a Wonderful Life, it's considered one of the best movies ever made.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shawshank_Redemption#Criti...
Groundhog Day is like this too. Although it was a "modest" box office success its critical reputation grew massively as the years went by. To the point that again it's consistently on best-ever movie lists.
"[12 years later] Ebert raised his original score for the film from three stars to a full four stars [saying] that he had underestimated the film"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog_Day_(film)#Post-rele...
It's befitting that watching Groundhog Day again and again makes you like the movie more.
Btw I mentioned It's a Wonderful Life's copyright situation in my original post.
ricardobeat
You cannot attribute their success simply to repeated TV runs though. Some films are just not that appealing for the cinema, more art than entertainment, and slowly convert each viewer into a fan until it joins the collective consciousness as a classic. It's a story that all of these have in common - some level of critical acclaim before release, flops at the cinemas, slowly builds up a reputation.
rrrrrrrrrrrryan
It's funny - I watched the Shawshank Redemption for the first time a couple years ago, after hearing forever about what a great film it is, and thought it was so lackluster I wasn't sure if I was missing something.
"Did he die in the end? Was it a dream sequence?" But no, both the intention of the creators, and by far the most common interpretation from viewers, is that it's all literal.
I tried watching Groundhog Day just once, and couldn't make it though it because (I assumed) it had aged so terribly.
Your comment made me reevaluate this though. I assumed the main appeal of these gonna was just nostalgia, and I've missed a key window, but perhaps it's the repeat viewings and predictability that make these films comfort food.
onenite
“Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”
- often (incorrectly) attributed to Lao Tzu
akprasad
A similar idea from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, ~7th century BCE
> 'And here they say that a person consists of desires. And as is his desire, so is his will; and as is his will, so is his deed; and whatever deed he does, that he will reap.
ants_everywhere
Lao Tzu didn't say this. It appears to date from the owner of a supermarket chain in the 1970s
onenite
D’oh! Should’ve done my research—It sounds so believable. Thank you for the correction.
ants_everywhere
No problem :) It does sound believable.
_mu
Yes, it's a very ancient idea.
"As we think, so we become."
- Buddha
onenite
Thanks, i was about to share the first pair of verses of the Dhammapada (words of the Buddha. … allegedly), which perhaps would have been better than the misattributed quote in my initial comment:
Mind precedes all mental states.
Mind is their chief; they are mind-made.
If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts, suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.
.
Mind precedes all mental states.
Mind is their chief; they are mind-made.
If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts, happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow.
photon_garden
Yes, exactly!! I use art-making to direct my attention in the same way:
> on the one hand, the kid shouting at the park is the latest fruiting body of an immortal superorganism that's older than dry land.
> on the other, they're sticky and smell a little like pee.
> my work helps me pay close attention like this. how can i experience a moment with the direct, fresh awareness that makes a good haiku?
SonOfLilit
I enjoyed your words and pixels!
energy123
That's the default mode network. People that struggle with anxiety and rumination, as per the author's second section, lack the endogenous mechanisms to interrupt the default mode network.
wtbdbrrr
> lack the endogenous mechanisms
It's not a lack of mechanisms. It's buggy wiring in the brain where at some point in time t some substance or lack thereof forced the brain to reroute blood flow through "paths" that were less impacted by the bug.
if you can increase the blood flow through the originally responsible paths, you can recover any buried mechanism.
people with ADHD and stuff who had only slightly lower blood and or oxygen flow in the PFC, improve the negative symptoms of their ADHD as soon as normal levels of blood/oxygen flows through the PFC. this is true for any area in the brain*.
I'm sure there's studies on post-ischemic recovery that confirm all this.
Identifying entire paths through brain areas is no simple task, of course. But comparing "issues" to normal and extreme behaviors usually draws a more or less unambiguous graph.
*better blood flow and better oxygen supply usually mean better performance for any organism (or part of it)
Nevermark
> It's not a lack of mechanisms. It's buggy wiring in the brain where at some point in time t some substance or lack thereof forced the brain to reroute blood flow through "paths" that were less impacted by the bug.
I don't think there is any solid basis to say this.
There has been at least one study that linked greater differences between right and left prefrontal cortex blood flow, favoring the right, to greater ADHD symptoms.
> "higher levels of right relative rCBF and lower levels of left relative rCBF were predictors of higher severity of clinical symptom expression" [0]
But developmental differences are pervasively correlated, without contributing to common phenomena, even more so for proximate phenomena, because developmental signals have widespread cascades of impact throughout the body.
This makes the bar for causal claims very high.
There could be no functional correlation, just developmental correlation.
The difference could be causally reverse. I.e. differences in lateral PFC development generated the differences in circulatory recruitment, not the other way around.
Or there is some functional-physical causation, but ADHD is correlated with many other brain differences too. So is it significant?
Then, even if it were significant, Would reducing/increasing blood flow between the post-development sides really have net benefit now? Seems unlikely that any decrease anywhere, even with increases elsewhere, post-development, would be uniformly helpful.
And finally, increasing blood flow is completely different from a re-balance.
Increasing blood flow, or simply increasing oxygen in available air, improves the function of almost everything in the body. Everyone will benefit from more oxygen to the prefrontal cortex, up to a point.
wtbdbrrr
awesome, thanks.
> I don't think there is any solid basis to say this.
The history of eugenic programs as well the blocking of male/female sex hormones to inhibit sexual development or for transitional purposes should reveal a solid basis. Brain/body are capable of recovering close to a genetic baseline, at least up to some age.
> developmental signals have widespread cascades of impact throughout the body.
I read too little about that in edge cases, but in brains and bodies that developed normally, these changes are ever so slight that, as is commonly known, radically changing diets and lifestyle can recover the genetic baseline. Physical and psychological manifestations and changes are bio-chemistry and neuro-chemistry, and I do mean the one-to-one match as much as the correlates.
Bad posture ruins the kinetic chain as much as it impedes systemic metabolic logistics (blood circulation, lymphatic transport, ...). And if it happens too early and goes on for too long, the developmental differences to the genetic baseline become pervasive.
But bad posture isn't ADHD or anxiety or temporal lobe epilepsy, for example, for which people with ADHD have a higher susceptibility for, all due to Neuroplasticity aka neural adaptation.
But the intensity of any phenomenon depends to at least some more than "just barely" (3-5%) relevant degree on lifestyle and the psycho-social environment. Psychological traits are more nurture-dependent than physical traits but physical traits (can) have a massive influence on psychology, a lot of which can be attributed to how the environment perceives qualities and behaviors. For people with different sub-types of ADHD, this can either mean worlds-apart to their genetic baseline or just slightly off enough to be a tad bit bitter.
This was a lot but here's what I'm getting at:
> Seems unlikely that any decrease anywhere, even with increases elsewhere, post-development, would be uniformly helpful.
Any increase towards baseline is beneficial throughout the entire affected graph of neural structures, as well as proximate ones.
I assume there are fMRI studies on specific cognitive performance during ischemia and post-ischemia. Their findings should confirm that recovery from damage due to long-term hypodensity and decreased perfusion but that is also quite normal as any recovery from injury comes with a restoration of functionality.
The reason I am mentioning ischemia specifically is that brains don't stop working just because some part suffers from a reduction in blood flow. But ischemia can last for a very long time, especially if undiagnosed.
Developmental signals and ischemia are, of course, two entirely different things but the connection I see is the part where the brain reroutes neural signals simply because it's an innate mechanism, not an adaptive response. [citation needed, but I believe I read something about earlier this year. I am not uncertain.]
While ADHD is "a genetic thing", it can also be the consequence of lifestyle and "psycho-social" environment aka nurture, without any part of the essential genetic component. But the intensity or severity of positive and or negative ADHD symptoms is mostly the result of lifestyle and nurture, for which the impact(s) of drugs, diet and environment are proof.
So while it's absolutely true, that
> developmental signals have widespread cascades of impact throughout the body,
there is definitely
> functional-physical causation,
that is significant.
fwipsy
This seems like a strong claim, and I've never heard of it before. Can you provide sources?
jimkri
I’m not backing that comment claim, but from recent research I’ve been doing.
My ADHD brain is lacking non-essential and essential amino acids/minerals,I think that comment stated the brain then rewires to compensate for the lack of nutrients. Thats what I’m taking.
I’ve been taking Spirulina as my booster to help fill in my nutrition deficiencies and then I’ve been feeling better leading me to get past the anxiety and rumination.
Richard Feynman wrote about it, that you can be hypothesized and want to do something and know you can, but you don’t or just can’t.
The article is great. One thing I’ve been doing is trying to make Arts and Crafts again.
I’m starting to incorporate Ai and my family to show what we can do. Then it’s starting to lead to everyone documenting their days with voice notes and more conversations
devin
The only part of this that rhymed with something I'm aware of is growth in the PFC in practicing meditators and a relation to improvement of ADHD symptoms among other things, though I don't recall whether it was a good study or not. I think I read that more than a decade ago.
wtbdbrrr
I'm sorry that I don't have the time to look further. But tangential sources could be
fMRI studies in general but definitely those related to cognitive performance during and after recovery from ischemia.
Also: studies on sexual development, the inhibition of sex hormone metabolisms.
And I'm quite certain that some of Michael Levin's research could provide some bits, too. But I am not sure what keywords I would start with.
hinkley
My symptoms didn’t improve that much when I was an endurance athlete. Most of the improvements could be adequately explained by the hedonic treadmill. I could suffer longer.
wtbdbrrr
But you did not suffer from a reduction to your genetic baseline.
You went up from your baseline.
> Most of the improvements could be adequately explained by the hedonic treadmill. I could suffer longer.
That's chemistry in body and brain. There were changes.
iamben
If you're near any of the cities they run events in, I highly recommend https://pitchblackplayback.com/
There's something deeply connecting (and often very moving) about listening to a record and having your attention forced on it. So much that I usually start by thinking "I hope they turn it up," and by the end, when it has your sole focus, it's almost deafening.
munificent
When I travel for work, being in meetings all day and in an unusual place can be draining. Many years ago, I developed the habit of when I get back to my hotel room:
* Turn off all the lights
* Lay flat on my back in bed
* Put on headphones
* Listen to a few songs and give them my full attention
It very much helps me unwind after a long day. But it's also astonishing how much more I hear in the music itself when I do this. I remember the first time I listened to Portishead's "Wandering Stars" this way, I could immediately hear the slight push and pull where the organ riff isn't exactly on beat. I'd never noticed that (consciously) before.
waterheater
Some years ago, I snagged a great deal on some Sennheiser HD600s. After also acquiring a Schiit stack (Magni + Modi) and finding high-quality audio sources, I would close my eyes, lay down on the couch, and just listen...actually, I'll call it perceive the music. No other audio experience compares, just like a huge screen which fills your vision is truly the best way to experience a movie.
Virtually all people on the planet perceive the world with their eyes but push the other four physical senses into the background. There's good reason for this reality, of course: of our five physical senses, the eyes are capable of providing the richest information. And yet, most discussion around increasing perceptual abilities are vision-centric. Learning to perceive with your ears, smell, touch, and taste in addition to eyes should also be learned.
wrs
I’ve been producing music as a side interest for a long time, and I learned early on that to really hear what’s going on during a mix I have to close my eyes and wait about 30 seconds for my ears to “open up”. My visual sense overrides the soundstage — I can make some technical choices about frequency masking and so forth, but I can’t fully hear with eyes open.
corny
This weekend and next week they will be playing David Bowie's 'Live At Montreux' at Lobe in Vancouver. Lobe is a unique room with the speakers installed in the floor and ceiling. https://lobestudio.ca/new-events/david-bowie-live-at-montreu...
soundattention
If this intrigues you, and you are in the Bay Area, I would recommend checking out Audium.
Similarly, it places you in a room, turns off the lights, and you listen to an audio performance. Though it is more soundscapes interlaced musically than the Pitch Black Playback's focus on albums.
themafia
This comes across as manic. It reminds me very much of the types of themes and prose my diagnosed roommate would create.
freddier
He seems to have hyperphantasia, judging by every example of mental images he described. It's not a requirement, as the example from the other person on the beach didn't need it to feel that level of self-feeding joy.
But I wonder if aphantastic people have a harder time with this? Or maybe easier with less mental distractions?
anentropic
I have aphantasia, and I can definitely get deep into music
and to be honest, for me, turning great music into a mental movie seems to be almost missing the point, I prefer experiencing it as music
buildbot
I think aphantastic people would be able to but using an inner monologue/internal text? Or even just the feeling and concentration on that feeling?
Tangentially trying to imagine not being able to visualize mental images is really hard.
wvlia5
Reminds me of https://nadia.xyz/jhanas
I can get psychdelic vision at will being sober (OEVs), mainly looking at grass (with other images it's more difficult). It's produced by sustained attention. It doesn't come with any other psychdelic effect, so it doesn't seem too valuable.
pahool
which is linked in the article
lisper
> In Spanish, you “lend” attention. In Swedish, you “are” attention.
In Hebrew you "place [your] heart" (lasim lev).
CGMthrowaway
In Japanese (注意を払う), you pay attention, much like in English. However, the verb 払う also means "to sweep away" or "to clear" suggesting a sense of effort or focus in clearing distractions to direct attention
In Korean 신경 쓰다 literally means "to use nerves." The idea of investing mental energy into something
In Finnish, you fasten or attach attention (kiinnittaa huomiota)
anticensor
In Turkish, you give attention, expending your mental capability.
ssttoo
Ha, I was just recently thinking about what you do with attention in different languages. In my native Bulgarian (обръщам внимание) you “turn” your attention as in you “direct” it. Same word for when you turn a page. Like you have but a single attention and it’s up to you where you direct it.
In French (correct me if I’m wrong) you “make” attention, « faire attention ». Like there’s unlimited amount of attention and you can always make more.
WA
In German, you "direct" attention at something or "gift" attention to someone.
lisper
What German phrase did you have in mind? Because the idiomatic translation of "to pay attention" is "aufpassen", which literally translates to something like "pass on" or "fit on".
fainpul
You can't rip apart that word into "auf" and "passen" and then individually translate them literally. The result seems nonsensical. I would say "aufpassen" is literally "be attentive" / "be watchful".
Edit: "to pay attention" is literally "Aufmerksamkeit zollen"
1718627440
I would translate "aufpassen" more with "to attend" or "to watch over".
The literal analogue to "pass on" or "fit on" is "anpassen"; "auf" generally means "over", "on/to the top of".
epaga
"jemandem Aufmerksamkeit schenken", "Aufmerksamkeit auf etwas richten"
iLemming
In Russian, you "spare" attention by "making" it. The word 'уделять' shares the same root with the word that means - 'deed', 'doing', 'act' or 'affair'.
laurent_du
No, it's a different etymological root. A better translation would be to say that you give a share of your attention (делить's meaning is to divide).
iLemming
Ah, right. I completely missed the difference between 'делать' and 'делить'.
mrsvanwinkle
Absolutely mind/world-expanding. Thanks for sharing. The Swedish version reminds me of (the now "disgraced" but his Proust book is cool journalist) Lehrer's chapter on Virginia Woolfe in Proust Was a Neuroscientist, where he claims that "attention _is_ consciousness" in Woolf's then-novel stream of consciousness style in To the Lighthouse.
DisruptiveDave
This is buddhism and mindfulness in a nutshell. The only thing about your existence that does not change is that which is aware.
saxelsen
In Swedish it's "var uppmärksam" which is more like "be attentive" - same as in English. They just use the adjective form more.
SonOfLilit
Huh, I never placed my heart to it
SonOfLilit
Mandarin Chinese: 注意 (zhùyì) - "note/record intention" Spanish: prestar atención - "lend attention" English: pay attention - "give/spend attention" Hindi: ध्यान देना (dhyaan dena) - "give meditation/focus" Arabic: انتبه (intabih) - "be alert/awake" ...
This did not go where I thought it was going, and I'm glad. I enjoyed the read. I'm not versed enough in psychiatry to validate the brain-chemistry stuff but my practical experience lines up.
Reminds me of the trick of telling yourself "let's give this my full attention for just 5 minutes, and if I still don't want to do it we can move on". I pretty much always end up wanting to keep doing that thing.