alice at dawn alice shirey blog

Category: attention

Zoom out!

I just finished reading an Arthur Brooks column in the Atlantic. Gorgeous words. Here is a little excerpt I want to share with you: You will notice that all of the modern untruths I’ve identified have one big thing in common: They say you should focus on yourself—your future, your career, your discomfort, your truth. […]

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Mistaking the most beautiful things for nothing ...

I heard a poem yesterday … or I should say, a part of a poem. I am not sure who the author of the poem was. I am not even sure I have the phrase right. Nonetheless, I have been captured by its truth, this little, potentially misquoted, phrase: "Lord, most of what I love […]

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Understanding Time: Why Enjoyment Changes Our Perception

I have been thinking a lot about time lately. How slow time can crawl in some circumstances---waiting in line, listening to a boring concert or speech, holding one's breath awaiting a test result. How quickly time can fly in other circumstances---coffee with a great friend, looking at your adult kids' faces and wondering how they […]

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No time to think ...

"To me, one of the most troubling ways social media has been used in recent years is to foment waves of hysteria and fear, both by news media and by users themselves. Whipped into a permanent state of frenzy, people create and subject themselves to news cycles, complaining of anxiety at the same time they […]

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The Power of Doing Nothing in a Chaotic World

I am revisiting Jenny Odell's fascinating book, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. Originally published in 2019, her work feels more urgent today than it did a mere six years ago. The pace of life--of change, of disruption, of technology--continues to accelerate. Most everyone I talk with is not okay. At all. I […]

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When life is dark, read the poets ...

It is far too easy, when life is dark, to turn to facts and non-facts, arguments and counterarguments, all the words and torrents of opinion. We look to these things to help us make sense of the nonsensical, the absurd, the impossible to believe. But I find, when life is dark, poetry often helps more […]

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alice at dawn alice shirey blog
Welcome to Alice at Dawn. My short posts are meant to be regular reminders to keep walking, to keep living, to continue to listen to the voice deep within your spirit that whispers ... this is the way. Walk in it.

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