Do I Have Your Attention Yet?
Do I Have Your Attention Yet?
Are you playing or are you getting played?
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Do I Have Your Attention Yet?
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.” - Annie Dillard
Even more so than time, it is how we spend our attention that determines the story of our lives.
For example, your body might be on a walk, but if your mind is attending to a bad decision you made earlier that day, then this segment of your life can’t really be categorized as “walking” so much as “fretting.”
Attention is our most valuable and powerful resource. It determines what we do, how we feel, and ultimately, the lives that we lead.
And for the past decade or so, our attention has been under assault.
Little handheld computers arrived in every pocket. Social media embedded itself into our routines. Notifications proliferated.
Every UX designer in the world was highly incentivized to capture your most valuable resource. It’s no wonder you couldn’t resist the pull.
That’s the backdrop.
It was already exhausting. You were already feeling the strain.
And then crypto and NFTs came along and swept you up.
This space is nonstop. It is literally 24/7/365.
The markets never close. The drops never stop. The amount of new information is more than one could possibly ever consume.
Every time you take a day off, it can feel like you’re missing out.
So you keep coming back and drinking from the firehouse.
You log onto Twitter and Discord.
And then what do you do?
You react.
React, react, react.
FOMO into this. FOMO out of that. Buy high (euphoria). Sell low (panic).
Line goes down, feel depressed.
Line goes up, get excited.
Rinse and repeat.
A never-ending cycle of reactivity with no master plan.
This is how you are spending your attention. This is how you are spending your life.
You can’t go on like this.
Humans, unlike markets, are not 24/7/365.
We need breaks. We need rest. We need silence. We need beauty. We need relationships.
Imagine being on your deathbed and thinking “Shit, why did I spend so much of my life on Twitter?”
Is that the legacy you want for yourself?
You only get one life. How are you going to spend it?
One reason I love this space is because I feel like a 21st-century explorer. Everything is new. The possibilities are endless. I love being surrounded by possibility and creativity.
I also learn by doing. You can’t really understand this space just by reading about it, you have to do it.
In the words of Alan Watts, “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance”
We are all joining the dance!
It’s fun. It’s thrilling. But it’s not the only dance in town.
Right now, many of us are out of balance. Our attention is 90% on one thing.
Back in January, I posed the question: “Why do we care about money in the first place?”
“Because we all want the financial freedom to live beautiful, meaningful lives” I suggested. “And if you can’t enjoy a nice dinner with your family without thinking about prices or glancing at your portfolio in the bathroom, you are either way overexposed or you have some serious inner work to do.”
How we spend our attention is how we spend our lives.
If you don’t make a plan for your attention, then others will.
You owe it to yourself to live a beautiful rich life.
So make your plan, and get to work.
🍣 Salmon Bites
A few quick morsels of fun before I sign off:
1. Tweet of the Week
Read the rest of the thread here to find out why I am writing about grocery stores on NFT Twitter.
2. Artist Spotlight: Artemis
Artemis creates generative artworks using programming and machine learning, converting spoken input into visual outputs.
In other words, he trains neural networks to process language and produce pictures based on that language.
For example, here is an input: “Lowering itself to meet his gaze, a boy and the machine, a chance encounter in the dark haze.”
And here is the output, titled Chance Encounter:
I was recently DMing with Artemis, and he wrote this:
This made me so happy to hear. This person is living their dream!
Talk about making a plan for your attention and then executing it.
You can follow Artemis and his work on Twitter @artemisandarts and you can check out more of his work on Foundation.
What did you think about this issue of The Monty Report? Please head over to Twitter and let me know. Be sure to tag me - @MontyMedici - in your post so that I see it.
Until next week.
🐾 🍷
Monty