Welcome to Litsy!

Heard about this book from the Ezra Klein show. I‘m only partway through the episode and already fascinated. The author looks at attention as a factor of wellbeing, not productivity. I‘ve excited to finish the episode and read the book!

In a world where addictive technology is designed to buy and sell our attention, and our value is determined by our 24/7 data productivity, it can seem impossible to escape. But in this inspiring field guide to dropping out of the attention economy, artist and critic Jenny Odell shows us how we can still win back our lives.

+ eye opening

I loved this book! It hit me at just the right time. I have felt very busy and connected recently, and so her musings on disconnecting, engaging with nature, and slowing down were just perfect. Also, I read most of the book on vacation and at some gardens, which just felt ideal. I would say the title is deceptive. It‘s not “how to do nothing” as much as “how to unplug.”

This was such a good book, starting with how to be quiet, find still space in nature, create relationships with friends, and be intentional. Unlike others, Odell takes those fairly familiar approaches and tools and looks at how to use them to break down “the attention economy” and move towards “manifest dismantling” of oppression and the increasing destruction of our planet. One I want to return to.
#Booked2023 #Balance
#Nonfiction2023 #SoWhat

Manifest Destiny wears a strange expression, aimed at the target of “progress.” What is the opposite of manifest destiny? I think it would be something like the angel of history. It‘s a concept I call “Manifest Dismantling.” I imagine another painting, one where Manifest Destiny is trailed, not by trains and ships, but by Manifest Dismantling, a dark-robed woman who is busy undoing all the damage wrought by Manifest Destiny, cleaning up her mess.

When I try to imagine a sane social network it is a space of appearance, a hybrid of mediated and in-person encounters, of hours-long walks with a friend, of phone conversations, of closed group chats, of town halls. It would allow true conviviality, the dinners and gatherings and celebrations that give us the sustenance we need and where we show up for each other in person and say, “I am here, fighting for this with you.”

The attention economy profits from keeping us trapped in a fearful present…I worry about what this means long term for our propensity to seek out context, or our ability to understand context at all. Given that all of these issues facing us demand an understanding of complexity, relationship, and nuance, the ability to seek and understand context is nothing less than a collective survival skill.

Similar to many Indigenous cultures‘ relationships to land, bioregionalism is first and foremost based on observation and recognition of what grows where as well as an appreciation for the complex web of relationships among those actors. More than observation, it also suggests a way of identifying with place, weaving oneself into a place through observation of, and responsibility to, an ecosystem.

While it may seem at first like refusal is a reaction, the decision to actually refuse—not once, not twice, but perpetually until things have changed—means the development of and adherence to individual and collective commitments from which our actions proceed. In the history of activism, even things that seemed like reactions were often planned actions…Rosa Parks was “acting, not reacting” when she refused to get up from her seat.

Curiosity, something we know most of all from childhood, is a forward-driving force that derives from the differential between what is known and what is not known…. Through attention and curiosity we can suspend our tendency toward instrumental understanding, seeing things or people one-dimensionally as the products of their functions, and instead sit with the unfathomable fact of their existence which opens up toward us.