My Attention

2-minute read
sensemaking • education • politics • religion • attention

Written by Gavin Palmer

Popular people with good goals must:

  • try to respect everyone’s attention.
  • appreciate the importance and potential of people and their attention.
  • remember that a person’s attention changes over time.

Attention is Scarce

Humans have limited attention. I remember talking about this situation with my wife when we thought about bringing an additional human into the world. Each time we add another member into our family, the amount of attention we are able to give each family member decreases.

Attention is Powerful

Our attention is the most powerful, valuable, and important resource the world has ever known. When we are able to organize and focus our attention we achieve miracles.

Attention is Changing

When I face a life-threatening challenge in life which requires my attention, I don’t consult my infant. I don’t ask my infant for help. I don’t listen to the noises she is making. I know that the infant I am raising has unimaginable potential but she is not able to help at that time.

Attention Filters

We need filters which allow us to ignore the noise and focus on the signal which carries value in relation to our goals. I wasn’t eligible to be President of the United States (POTUS) until I was 35 years old. That rule is an attention filter. Embedded within that rule might be knowledge about the minimum amount of experience a person requires before they are qualified to be POTUS.

Attention Gateways

The Republican and Democratic parties are attention gateways. The most common path for people to become POTUS involves participating in one of these two political parties. There are also media advertisements and sanctioned debates which serve as attention gateways for candidates interested in becoming POTUS. Another gateway is the institutions which provide polling data.

My Attention Gateway

My Paths Forward Policy has a link to my community. I am interested in eventually being a candidate for POTUS because I am interested in demonstrating how a person should use technology to do sensemaking. My primary goal would not be to win the election.

Disclaimer prior to 2023-03-25: being neurodivergent, I sometimes fail to communicate my thoughts clearly.
Disclaimer beginning 2023-03-25: posts are being generated with the help of GPT.
Disclaimer beginning 2023-10-12: I decided to practice making Jesus my king.
Disclaimer beginning 2024-04-27: I learned the importance of sharing things more privately with God in prayer and with my wife and with a couple of Christian brothers>. I decided to make my past blog posts less public. I made my facebook page less public weeks ago. I no longer care so much for the approval of people.