The Attention Deficit

This article originally appeared on my personal blog, Reflections of the Sovereign Artist, here.

Editor’s Note: In two days, this post will be locked and is available only to paid members because we don’t want this duplicate content on the open web in a way that might draw traffic away from the original post. You can always read the entire post here.

We are sharing this essay in The BoldBrush Letter because the underlying idea applies to all artists. Please enjoy.

We are, as a society, plagued by attention deficit disorder — not the syndrome that people pop Ritalin pills to “cure” — but something far more pernicious.

You see most people don’t realize that there are two types of attention: attention of the soul, and attention of the ego. Let’s call them egoistic attention and soulful attention.

These two types of attention represent, for your soul, how you earn energy and how you spend energy. This difference in the quality of attention is one way to understand Christ’s statement, to “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s.”

Just like material wealth, we all desire to acquire spiritual wealth. In fact, deep down, we long for spiritual wealth more than money. And we acquire such spiritual wealth by engaging in soulful attention.

When we chase wonder, and turn toward transcendent beauty by opening our hearts and devoting to it our full attention, we will hear our true calling; our spiritual ‘job’; our true name; our purpose. And, when we live according the purpose of our true name, the name the Lord gave us, we find joy.

But when we turn away from the call of wonder and allow ourselves to be sucked into the “attention economy,” we fall back into egoistic attention. In this lowered state, we are taking our true name — the Lord’s name — in service of our own vanity. This is one meaning of the phrase, “to take the Lord’s name in vain.” The commandment not to do so is admonishing us to follow the yearnings of our soul which were planted in our hearts for a reason.

Engaging in the goodly type of attention grows our soul, and soulful attention adds energy to our spiritual wealth.

In other words, in a spiritual way, we get paid for soulful attention. And if you give complete soulful attention to nearly anything, it becomes holy in a process of mystical merging, where you magnify the object of your attention until it becomes the only thing in your universe. When you magnify something through the beautification of your gaze, it becomes magnificent.

This is an energetic process with which many meditators (and artists) reading this post will have felt; for meditation is a sort of ultimate state of focusing soulful attention upon one object in the present moment. Some people practice meditation long enough that they grow their souls to the point that they light up permanently inside. Those people have become enlightened.

“The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.” – Henry Miller

Practically, however, we live in the material world and, by necessity, we spend most of our time not earning energy by engaging in soulful attention, but losing energy by payingattention of the ego. When we grant something our egoistic attention, it takes energy, and we must pay for that attention with energy we have previously stored.

Soulful attention increases order inside of us. It contributes to a deep intuitive knowing, while egoistic attention leads to a build up of disorder in our minds.

In scripture, growing this soulful order inside inside of us is called “following God’s law,” and growing the disorder in our minds is called, “falling into iniquity.” Iniquity is a word that literally means “not equal.” And egoistic attention, as you can see, is definitely not the equal of soulful attention.

Unfortunately for us, modernity is designed to lure us into spending — paying — most of our waking hours engaged in egoistic attention.

Our modern world has turned into a kind of endless “bread and circuses” spectacle that seduces us into doomscrolling, responding to the demands of others, clearing red bubbles from our devices, and hearing about endless “unprecedented” horrible events through the “news.”

Nearly all of this frantic activity consists of nothing more than endless energy sucking distractions that contribute to the growing disorder inside our minds and throughout our society. You can see that if we don’t wish to mentally fall into iniquity (mental disorder) we must be careful to what we pay our attention.

This endless material consumption draws in your ego’s attention for which you must pay with the energetic currency of your soul. And most of us are so drained, that we are, like the government, now deficit spending. We have created an energy deficit by paying with too much of our egoistic attention: The attention deficit.

We are tired and empty, and yet, we keep on scrolling, paying (egoistic) attention and digging deeper and deeper into the hole of iniquity because of our attention deficit disorder.

What most of us need, desperately, is first and foremost to stop digging. Put the phone down and see it for what it truly is: your precious.

And second of all — we need to re-create ourselves – our true selves; our souls. And the best way to engage in this re-creation of the soul is to engage in activities that allow us to pay soulful attention to the wonder of the world around us.

Ultimately, soulful attention is the poetic attention of the Artist.

Soulful attention, through uplifting art, through nature, and through inspiring people creates the true human through the mysterious divine ground it unveils when it rebirths the fleshy poetic heart of man.

“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” - Ezekiel 36:26

But egoistic attention, the world, smothers the divine light within, and ultimately destroys our humanity by turning our heart to stone and our actions into programming.

Soulful attention creates, even when focused on the tiniest of details that we normally overlook.

Soulful attention creates Art, it creates wisdom, it creates joy, and ultimately it creates life, Zóé, abundant life, and since you are (part of) God experiencing the universe, soulful attention, ultimately, is your gift to God and He pays you for it by granting you access to The Kingdom where your soul grows and transforms into something divine.

The afternoon warmed and the cicadas began their alien-like chittering ode to summer. For summer, it appears, has arrived. Soon they will leave their empty shells on our home, our trees, and our shrubs as reminders of the daily choir that has chosen our yard as its cathedral.

A bright orange butterfly drifted along on the slight breeze, jerking back and forth, flitting this way, then that as if it was navigating a twisting maze invisible to my own eyes.

The May sun glinted off those mandarin wings, calling me, whispering to me, telling me to set aside my work and come outside and live.

I stepped outside and took a deep breath: Perfection.

If one is blessed, and pays close attention to the world, he may glimpse perfection for a few scant minutes a day. But that isn't that enough? Who could ask for more? It's perfection after all, whether you have it for a short time or eternity doesn't matter. All that matters is that you held it in your grasp. All one has to do is open his eyes and wake up and feel the expansion of his soul.

– From Clintavo’s journal, May 2022

Referenced Posts:

Modernity is Hell
This reads like a psalm for the soul-sick—equal parts lament and luminous call to awaken. Clintavo has pierced the veil of modernity’s hollow comforts and pointed straight to the aching heart beneath our concrete sprawl. Beauty is the battleground, and wonder is the rebellion. In a world addicted to numbness, feeling anything sacred is a revolutionary act. — Aleksander Constantinoropolous

How to Grow Humanity's Creativity
This is beautiful! As an artist being free is an essential part of my creative process. I wish one day all human could be free there would be a beautiful shift in energy! — Valerie Munoz

Actually, Beauty IS in the Eye of the Beholder
“A sacred gift to you: It is within your power to beautify everything you gaze upon! Beautify your gaze, and suddenly the entire world becomes a delightful playground!”

The Call of Wonder
“I really feel in tune with your reflections in this article, and in all the ones I've read up till now. I can see myself in the mirror of your words as if I have written them or at least thought about them in the same way. The connection to the deepness of your soul that I can sense, makes me feel I'm not alone in my quest.” — Vito Acosta

I Never Even Called Me By My Name
“Thank you for this! This resonates so much. I heard God call me a surfer once. I didn't understand but over time, I see it's who I am - I love catching and riding spiritual waves.” — Eugene Terekhin, Philosophy of Language

Noticing, The Meaning of Life
An excellent reminder to all. To notice, to be aware. — Victor D. Sandiego, Dynamic Creed

The Short Happy Life of Zoe
Fiction: “Feels like it has a deeper current of Ray Bradbury-ness waiting to swirl to the surface.... love Ray Bradbury, this is ‘attracting’. Cool job” — Kate Pistor

Panem et Circenses Habitus
Fiction: The mid-2030s has seen the New Roman Empire arise from the ashes of the west, but the masses, habitually engrossed in their phones, hardly even noticed. Thumbs up? Or thumbs down?

No AI Zone: Everything written in this post (and all my posts) is written 100% by me, Clint “Clintavo” Watson, a flesh and blood human seeking to grow my soul and come home my truest self; for that is the essence of creativity. I do not use AI to assist me with writing — that would deny me the very growth of my world through writing that I seek.

Poetic expression, spiritual ideas, and musings upon beauty, truth and goodness should be free to spread far and wide. Hence, I have not paywalled the work on my personal site. However, if you’re able to become a paid subscriber, I’d be eternally grateful. It would help, encourage and enable me to continue exploring these topics and allow me to keep it accessible for a world that is in desperate need of beauty, truth, goodness and love. — Creatively, Clintavo.

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