Our modern crisis of attention may have a very old solution
Devote your attention to one idea a day.
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We need to relearn how to sit still with our own thoughts.
ST PHOTO: BRIAN TEO
S.J. Murray
About 2,000 years ago, the Roman philosopher Seneca warned of a crisis of attention. The problem wasn’t caused by smartphones or TikTok; it was because papyrus had become more widely available. As a result, scrolls became plentiful and wealthy readers had access to more texts than ever before.
Seneca observed that the minds of those who read too many scrolls too quickly became restless and unsteady. This kind of mind was less able, he noted, to “stay in one place and spend time with itself”.
