Attention information

Hello friends,

I am telling you about attention!

Reader & wanted to know about paying attention.

You are doing this right now, I hope! Basically if you are alive in any of the ways I know about you are kind of always perceiving things with your sensory organs like eyes and mouth and ears and Supple Flesh. It's Always On and you can do nothing about it unless you have something hacked off or let all you blood out become hamburger for the woims. I don't think you should I'm just saying that's the options, even when you're asleep you're still perceiving stuff just in a weird way like when I was a kid and I dreamed I was with a Gandalf guy who kept saying word for word Jimmy Fallon stand-up bits because I had his CD on repeat. For readers shocked at my childhood comedy CD listening choice, you must understand the other CDs I had were Smash Mouth's Astrolounge and the soundtrack to The Matrix Revolutions and also Jimmy Fallon circa 2001 was basically a perfect comedian for children.

What was I talking about? Right, attention, yes. So basically paying attention is when you focus your attention to perceive something in particular. Now the big thing of paying attention is that it's not automatic, sometimes you pay attention to something you wish you hadn't like someone talking to their friend on the street about the ending of a movie you wanted to go see or sometimes you don't pay attention to something you really should have like the specifics of the warning that witch gave you about how that potion works because now all the dogs in the neighborhood are turning into people instead of just the one you meant to do that to and the fact they all speak really good English because of all the tarragon in the potion is a LITTLE helpful to the situation but their thoughtful and nuanced arguments for why they should get to rip apart cats are not winning hearts and minds.

Anyways, paying attention, so it's really good to do that but you have to really work at it because it is an awfully big world with a lot of things in it. It's easier to pay attention to things when you've had a lot of sleep and you have good energy and your mind is quiet but if these were default circumstances the world would be completely different. Without your head screwed on nicely trying to pay attention can be terribly difficult and even kind of upsetting because you can feel the sand falling out of your head just as soon as it gets in, you know? You try to grab it but it's sand and there's no way around that. Some people have so much trouble paying attention it's a disorder called ADHD which I have never sought a diagnosis for because it got weirdly trendy and that made it seem repulsive to me, so probably I don't have it. If you have ADHD they might give you pills that make it possible to pay attention to things which sounds awesome, but again of course unnecessary for me so stop bringing it up!

Paying attention is a really important part of being an organism because stuff is basically always trying to kill you. That's true for animules like deer who are always being eaten by them big dogs they got in nature, the scary ones from fables. You know who I'm talking about. Even if you are a person and you don't live near the woods stuff tries to kill you like weather and diseases and the Whisperer. Sometimes this can be a problem where you pay too much attention like constantly thinking okay what's going to kill me here even though you're just like at the American Girl doll store and sure they're all looking at you but they're not going to start moving. I know how it feels but I promise you if you relax they're not going to start moving at inhuman speeds and taking your skin and eyes and ears and tongue so they can experience real life. That's only happened one time.

Paying attention isn't only for avoiding being split into three pieces by the Whisperer's sharp, small hands of course. It can help you with all kinds of stuff in life! Maybe if you pay attention to certain patterns you can figure out something will happen like a tornado or a earthquake or everyone is going to want to start eating spicy noodles in spring 2027. You can also use paying attention to figure out that a framed picture of a goose might be a nice present for a friend, or when TV shows without magic or anything in them are using green screen to put somebody in a kitchen who wasn't for some reason able to show up to the actual kitchen on the day. Paying attention to things can open up worlds and worlds of possibilities for you! BUT BE WARNED TRAVELER.....

You see, the thing about paying attention to things is it can automatically make whatever you are paying attention to seem important, or cool, or beautiful, or dangerous and deadly and that doesn't necessarily make it so. A lot of people through either circumstances of their own brain or being irradiated by computer start paying too much attention to things in the way of if a deer paid so much attention to a tree that when the wind swayed it's branches it became convinced that the tree was going to gobble it up. It is important to remember when you are paying attention to things which things are stuff you actually observed and which things are big scared guesses. It's okay with deer because they just run around but people do stuff like buy a million guns and try to invade the Mall of America because they think that is where the deep state is spraying people with chemicals that make them not want to go to the opera which is the ONLY EXPLANATION for declining opera attendance.

If you have never paid attention to something before this might all sound a little scary, which it probably should because any human behavior really does have to be kept in check so you don't go bazonkers and start smashing people's heads in like how chimps do when they see a color they didn't expect to. I suppose just try to pay attention in reasonable amounts to which things could happen that could harm you but also try to pay attention to all the things that aren't harming you and that are good. Like the world is still filled with evil people committing atrocities globally and locally and there's lots of problems that need solving, you shouldn't ignore that, but you need to remember about laughing babies and eating hot dogs with your friends on a sunny day and being in love and getting to drink water on the planet where everything good that's ever happened has happened. Otherwise you'll get all twitchy and start only going outside if you got a big knife on you.

Also make sure you don't pay attention to any little elves you see doing stuff. Anything elves are up to basically could not be less of your business and going down that particular rabbit hole is NOT worth it, trust me.

Thank you for reading my big attention email! If you would like to find out about something, tell me and I will try to already know about it

Love,

Ryland Duncan