Secondly, there is a value in leaving behind your other concerns and narrowing down your attention to one thing,

Distraction and displacement seem innocent on the surface. How can we be harming ourselves by having fun, or seeking romance, or enjoying the fruits of this big, beautiful world? But lives go down the tubes one repetition at a time, one deflection at a time,

seem to realize that in succumbing to such diversions, they were squandering the very stuff of existence. Seneca risks sounding like an uptight pleasure-hater here—after all, what’s so bad about a bit of sunbathing?—and to be honest, I suspect he probably was. But the crucial point isn’t that it’s wrong to choose to spend your time relaxing, whethe

Bottom-up attention automatically keeps you in touch with what’s going on in the world, but this great benefit comes with a drawback, particularly for postindustrial folk who live in metropolitan areas and work at desks rather than on the savannah: lots of fruitless, unwelcome distractions.