{ "blyg": "0.3", "id": "0xk42tmfah1vttmdrsaw7jpwg7", "kind": "fragment", "origin": "https://www.msweet.net/notes/", "page": "545-cobalt-eels", "author": { "name": "Matthew McDowell-Sweet", "url": "https://www.msweet.net/" }, "created": "2026-09-04T06:34:03Z", "updated": "2026-09-04T06:34:03Z", "version": 1, "content_md": "> I have always thought that grace is the opposite of will, and I suppose that I am attracted to Weil’s idea of attention partly because of its similarity to grace. We live in an age that is positively obsessed with attention. You cannot even glance at a screen these days without encountering someone lamenting its decline. But Weil is not talking about “focus.” Attention for her is nearly the opposite. “What could be more stupid,” she asks, “than to tighten up our muscles and set our jaws about virtue, or poetry, or the solution of a problem. Attention is something quite different.”\n\nWelcome to the era of slow transients, where everything is moving too fast to comprehend and our only choice is whether to accept the reality of our relative slowness.\n\n[Backsliding, by Meghan OGieblyn ↗](https://harpers.org/archive/2026/07/backsliding-meghan-ogieblyn-willpower)", "content_html": "

I have always thought that grace is the opposite of will, and I suppose that I am attracted to Weil’s idea of attention partly because of its similarity to grace. We live in an age that is positively obsessed with attention. You cannot even glance at a screen these days without encountering someone lamenting its decline. But Weil is not talking about “focus.” Attention for her is nearly the opposite. “What could be more stupid,” she asks, “than to tighten up our muscles and set our jaws about virtue, or poetry, or the solution of a problem. Attention is something quite different.”

\n

Welcome to the era of slow transients, where everything is moving too fast to comprehend and our only choice is whether to accept the reality of our relative slowness.

\n

Backsliding, by Meghan OGieblyn ↗

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