"Do I have your attention? Interest; are you interested?"

On Tokens and Buckets of Attention.

Welcome to 16 new people who joined us since my last post. I appreciate your time, and thanks for reading. This one is anecdotal, a sort of pseudo-science and is definitely not a recipe for success. Subscribe to be always up to date.

You are reading this line; I have your attention. But how long can I keep it? I am competing with the whole world, no wonder I am sweating, people. The same is valid for you; you compete as well, unless you are that overly modest eastern European Mom (or any other mom).

Intuitively the likelihood of you finishing this text depends on:

1. How much do you care about me and what I am about to tell you?

2. Do you consider me as someone who could give you a perspective on attention? 

3. Can the topic keep you engaged for 5 minutes?

4. Will nothing more important distract you?

Maybe you are reading because you are procrastinating, or you will stop reading now to check your phone, or because you intuitively do not feel the topic.

Why is that when a big boss sneezes everyone says „cheers“ and not many people do the same when an intern does? Why can Elon Musk move the price of Dogecoin and I cannot even sell my old MacBook? Why am I even writing this? Why some people want more attention than others? Why do we sometimes neglect other people? 

Ultimately it is about distributing our limited attention (= Tokens) to three different Buckets. Tokens have different shapes and Buckets have different angles. This means that a Token can easily roll out of the Bucket. So let’s explore the dynamics of attention and see if my Tokens and Buckets analogy holds any water.

But first, what is attention?

Attention is a mystery; it comes and goes. One moment you have it, the next you search for it. Getting attention means you are alive; someone cares. This is why it is good to at least message people on their birthday. And this is why you feel bad when deserted and alone. George Bernard Shaw is right: the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. And the worst punishment for your enemies is that you forget that they exist. How many people have forgotten you? Thanks for reading, who-are-you-again.

Attention requires effort. It is easier to receive it, giving requires more of you. At the same time Netflix is not as demanding as studying calculus. Reading also requires less attention than writing, the same as going up is harder than falling down. Thanks for reading, Mr. Gravity-Effort.

Attention can be uncomfortable; for example you could shit in your pants in the middle of the street and it would feel terrible. Or you could receive an unsolicited dickpic. Or you could be famous and never really be able to go to Dubrovnik in peace. Thanks for reading, Kanye.

Attention means responsibility. When you have attention, you better treat it well. Aren’t you tired of all the disappointments and bullshiters with power? Tired of looking for Integrity, that poor thing, probably dead in a stinky trench? Thanks for reading, ex-president. 

Attention breaks relationships. Too much or too little and you will be picking up pieces of broken hearts. Or swiping up Ikea plates flying around in the kitchen. Shattered people will be harder to make whole again. Thanks for reading.

So much of everything but only 10 attention Tokens!

Boss' email or that article, Twitter or Yoga, book about Nazis or Netflix, Netflix or a call, a pizza or a run, Podcast or the annoying task, write or read, call mom or call a colleague, cooking or reading about Taiwan, boss One or boss Two, Tinder or monastery, should I stay or should I go. You know where this leads, right.

Thousands of things, people behind things and people without things compete for our attention. So we need to constantly decide where to push our attention Tokens; and these decisions are always leaving something or someone out - usually others and our future selves, because we are dependent on people paying us. 

Our energy and time is limited. Everyone has 10 Tokens and no money can buy them, so here we are all equal. (Yes, this statement is stretched, it is easier for Jeff Bezos.) You could break the Tokens apart and create 100 smaller Tokens, but then you run into a danger they will not really make a difference.

Here we see unamused human surrounded by the universe of things and people competing for his attention:

What is the shape of your Tokens? Are you eastern European Mom or Narcissus?

Forces of attention start with yourself: how much attention do you need?

You can be either a modest eastern European Mom - your first priority are others, God forbid that somebody is left hungry, you sacrifice yourself for your kids, everyone else first, because you are „fine". Your Tokens will probably be sticky heavy cubes, getting easily stuck in a Bucket.

Or you can be Narcissus. Me me me me, yeah, we know the types. Your Tokens will probably be light spheres, rolling back to you easily.

It is given; it is your personal preference of how much attention you want. A big mismatch between the preference and reality breaks people, and it is a sad thing to observe. Narcissus with power will vacuum attention, which in turn will make him even more sure he is right. Narcissus with no attention will suffer the same way as Mom with loads of it.

Here we see the Narcissus scale with some Tokens lying around:

Who gets your Tokens? Three Buckets of attention.

Ok, so how do we decide where our attention goes? This depends on where we are on the Narcissus scale. This scale will impact the angle of your Attention buckets and the shape of your Attention tokens. In other words, your level of Narcissus will determine how easy is it for your Tokens to roll out of the Buckets.

Here we see that Buckets are three and can have different angles:

Lowest Power/Authority Bucket is the easiest to reach, because it includes people who pay us. It explains why we listen to people with authority (Musks, Trumps, Obamas, sometimes doctors and similar) and why people jump higher when person paying them says “jump” (compare with your annoying colleague telling you to „jump“). Also, people forced to jump will abandon you at the first opportunity.

Middle Bucket collects attention for people or things we care about. It explains why people are happily in love, why children are our biggest treasure and why we have so many relationships broken beyond repair because expectations and reality mismatch. It explains fans, influencers and hobbies. 

Highest Bucket requires the most effort to reach. It is your Future self. It explains why we prefer Netflix over something we know is more meaningful. It explains why we reach for our phones so often; it is both easy and checking notifications feels good, releasing dopamine. We prefer instant gratification and procrastinate because it is harder to see and feel future benefits of going for a run today.

So if you put eight of your Tokens to your loved ones, there are only two left for Future Self and Authority/Power. So something needs to give. Say your buckets are tilted and your Tokens are spheres; you will soon find them lying around your feet. Or you could never see them again if they are cubes.

Yes, yes, it is possible that Buckets are too many, too few, ordered differently and for sure they could be partially merged (eg. your loved one paying you and teaching you calculus). It is also possible to shuffle the Tokens really well between the Buckets each day if you are a Superhuman. Analogies are never perfect.

Ok, ok, ok, get it, I am still here. And what now?

After placing yourself on Narcissus scale (how much attention do you need?) this Token/Bucket analogy will help you when thinking about the following:

1. Where to put my attention and is there an optimal distribution of it? 

2. Why am I getting attention or why am I not getting it? Do I lack Power/Authority or nobody cares?

3. How do I balance interests of current self and future self? How many tokens will Future self take? Do I have any left for people that care about me? Will I be left alone?

4. Where did Picasso put his Attention tokens? Trump? Your partner?

5. Is there anything you can do for the overly modest (eastern European) Mom?

6. Is your boss a Narcissus and should you maybe abandon the ship?

7. How to fight the army of psychologists working on getting our attention?

8. And so on and on.

The trick of good sleep is in the balance. But it is hard to balance, because people paying us have a big claim on our Tokens, more so if you do a lot of cognitive work.

Neglecting Future self and People dear to us could then mean bad news in the longer run. Maybe the best way is to try to decrease dependency on people paying us, so we have more Tokens left?

Takeaways?

There, we are almost done. It seems all to understand at the end is the following:

1. Indifference hurts.

2. Extremes are dangerous for yourself and others.

3. Everyone competes for attention.

4. Everyone has limited amount of attention.

5. Generosity with your attention will get you places.

It is all so obvious and easy, right? Thanks for reading and your attention, I love you. Now go and think about who/what deserves your attention.

And imagine this guy asks you for some, what would you do?

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I would love to hear some feedback, so just drop me an email or share this with someone. Thanks!