Attention

Have you ever been in one of those situations where people are all looking at something, and you find yourself wanting to see what has gotten their attention?

I was at some fireworks once, and everyone started looking up into the sky, so I looked up into the sky, to see an advertisement for some politician on a banner, floating behind a little airplane. Yawn.

One time I was walking down a sidewalk in a little town that had shops and coffee houses, and people were all standing at this one place, looking in the window. So I waited for it to clear out a little and went to see what they were looking at. It ended up being my first exposure to one of those pictures that you have to stare at with your eyes painfully crossed for at least five minutes until you finally “see” a kind of 3D image of something like a bird or a car or whatever.

One time I was at a friends house, and a bunch of people were watching TV in his living room. I went to see what they were all looking at, and it turned out there was this new cable station called MTV, where they were going to show “music videos.” It seemed a little boring to me, but what do I know.

Years ago, someone told me there was this new thing called MySpace that everyone was using to kind of “promote” themselves. And then, there was this thing called “Facebook.” College students were using it to keep in touch with each other. Sounded like an interesting idea. And one day I heard some people talking about a video they saw on something called “Youtube.” They thought it was funny and they said millions of people had watched it.

If this were a sci-fi movie, it would all be a plot put together by aliens to take over our minds and control us so they could have us for lunch. And I mean, HAVE us for lunch.

I could go on and on, but I’m sure you’ve seen it too. It’s not that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with any of these things that command our attention. But still, it’s kind of creepy when you think about it: Something grabs the attention of someone, then someone else, then before you know it, without really thinking about it at all, hundreds, thousands, even millions of people all have their attention on the same thing.

Without thinking.


Hebrews 12:2-3
Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2011