We're all human that's for sure, attracted by whatever catches our eyes: distractions
Kim and Pete, or Vladimir and Volodymyr?
WASHINGTON — Please, Kim Kardashian, don’t elope with Pete Davidson.
We’re already distracted by the wonder of Ketanji Brown Jackson and the blunder of Will Smith, the arrival of dreamy spring days and the return of dreaded mask rules.
If we get one more shiny object to contemplate, I fear our support for Ukraine might waver. Do we have the attention span to stay focused on the Russian descent into pure evil?
With brutal methods perfected in other conflicts, the Russians are committing ever more brazen atrocities; they are raping and killing civilians. On Friday, they struck fleeing civilians in a train station in eastern Ukraine, where a missile psychopathically labeled “For our children” killed at least 50 people and wounded nearly 100.
“Why do they need to hit civilians with missiles? Why this cruelty?” Volodymyr Zelensky asked the Finnish Parliament on Friday, adding, “Sometimes, you think whether they are human at all.”
He pleaded, “Hatred has to lose.”
But are we moving on? Moving on, after all, is the favorite American activity. And technology has exacerbated our twitchy consciousness and sensationalist culture. We now live in a world of nothing but distractions, with a blizzard of stimuli.
We have a way of turning everything into trends. Once, there were causes. Now, there are trends. “You’re trending” is the highest compliment you can pay someone — or the biggest alarm you can sound. If something is trending, no matter what, it commands the highest commercial respect.
But trends are transient, by definition. American attention goes from transient to transient to transient. A lifetime of ephemera. We used to have thought leaders; now we have influencers.
It’s a cognitive challenge, but can we find ways to keep our attention on things that require our attention? Do we have any mental discipline at all?
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