On Attention: How we see

The best parts of life reveal themselves slowly.

I believe attention is generosity.

Not because it is difficult, but because it has become expensive.

We glance instead of looking. We skim instead of reading. We react instead of noticing.

Yet the best parts of life reveal themselves slowly.

As a physician, patients often ask me what makes a face beautiful. The longer I practise, the less I think beauty is a collection of features.

It is coherence.

It is ease.

It is the quiet feeling that nothing is asking for your attention because everything belongs.

A garden is not beautiful at first glance. Neither is a face. Nor a friendship. Nor a piece of writing. They ask something of us before they offer anything back.

Perhaps beauty isn’t simply something we find. Perhaps it is something our attention allows us to see.

Wherever attention accumulates, beauty has a chance to emerge.