You don’t pay attention. You are attention.
Right now, reading this, there’s an observer behind your eyes doing the observing.
That observer is always present. The question is what it’s pointed at.
For most of us, most of the time, it’s pointed at a screen. A feed. A scroll. A loop of outrage carefully calibrated by a twenty-six-year-old in California whose job is to keep you hooked.
Not because he’s evil. Because your attention is the product, and he’s very good at his job.
This isn’t a metaphor. It’s a business model.
Meanwhile, the hawthorn is in flower. The nettles are coming up. The wood is doing what it does in April, which is everything, all at once, for anyone paying attention.
You can’t be in two places at once. Your body can stand next to a tree in blossom while your mind rehearses an argument from three weeks ago – but you won’t see the tree. You’ll just be near it.
Kinship requires presence. Presence requires attention. And attention, right now, is the most contested resource on earth.
The plants haven’t gone anywhere. They’re still here, still doing their patient, extraordinary work.
To restore our relationship with the living world, we need our attention back.
All of it.