Weekend Reading & Recs: What if attention is the first act of agency?

Notes on how and what we choose to focus on outside the echo chambers.

We’re living through what often feels like an age of unraveling. Institutions are losing legitimacy. Trust is eroding. Every headline feels like another reason to brace for impact. Trump’s return is treated like a foregone conclusion. The Democratic Party feels adrift. Protest culture is back, but often more symbolic than structural. And beneath it all, a quiet despair is setting in—a sense that nothing we do will really change things.

And yet, people are still searching. For meaning. For grounding. For a way to participate in something real, beyond the hollow performance of politics as spectacle.

I’ve been thinking about how much of our energy gets drained by the demand to “pay attention.” To the feeds, the outrage, the churn. It feels responsible. But often, it’s just surrender. We perform awareness without getting any closer to power—or to each other.

What if attention isn’t something we owe the machine, but something we reclaim?