Attention is the mother of intelligence

I often poke fun at myself for always being one question short: even if I managed to ask a series of really good questions, I'll somehow fall one short of the breakthrough, and miss the actual solution, the timesaver, the aha, the gold nugget. After the fact, I wonder why I didn’t think of that question or possibility and invariably the answer is I’m not paying attention. I'm operating on what I think I already know about the situation instead of making a genuine inquiry and investigating whatever I’m working on as well as whatever assumptions I am relying on (those shorthands we've all developed and put on autopilot).

I'd like to introduce you to my friend Eric Darby.

photo credit: https://www.facebook.com/paoniafilmfestival/

tangent about his peace walk participation in the 80s:

https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-morning-news/142737314/

Eric is amazing: was drafted and flew helicopters in Vietnam, walked for peace in the 80s (across the country with his wife and two small children), taught himself to play several musical instruments, builds earth-sheltered homes, welds, makes sculpture and other art, is a professional clown, ... I can't even do justice to his life with a list like this. He's the kind of person I'd like to be.

Anyway, he has a saying, “If I can’t fix it, it ain’t broke,” and as a practical outcome, this saying results from his approach to life: paying attention. 

For example, his neighbor said his vehicle’s brake pedal was going to the floor, no resistance. “Maybe I’ll add brake fluid,” he said. Eric asked if he checked for fluid near all four tires first, seeing if the brake lines were intact. The neighbor checked and discovered fluid near the rear tire, and only then remembered an incident where a chain had snapped and wrapped around the axel. He hadn’t noticed the damage to the brake line at the time. Eric saved the guy a trip to town for brake fluid, and the waste of money and the fluid, had he simply stopped at the first assumption: when a brake goes all the way to the floor, there’s not enough fluid in the brake lines therefore add fluid. The neighbor would have discovered his error, eventually, just like I do with so many of my own problems, one question short. 

Eric takes time to investigate a little more because in addition to wanting to fix whatever is broken, he has an ethos that begins with attention and is complemented by more questions: now that I know what's wrong, what do I already have that I can use to fix this? What do I need to learn in order to fix this? Eric values thrift, repurposing, ingenuity, self-reliance, responsible use, and minimization of wastefulness. He is always curious and attentive.

This same neighbor, replacing the brake lines, wanted to borrow a tool from Eric because he found a metal rod hooked to the brake line hose that he said would need straightening before he could put the new hose on. But when Eric looked went over to check it out, he noticed that the hose wasn’t clamped but rather fused on, which meant the new hose would come with this metal part. Again, just noticing—it’s not a clamp—while the neighbor operated by the assumption rather than what he could have seen by looking just a little bit closer and longer before jumping to the “solution.” 

Eric’s attention practice extends to human problems like relationships, too. In October when his friend Emily bought a house with farm acreage for her goat herd (she’d rented land previously), she worried that all the noise the goats make during spring heat would disturb and anger the neighbors whose house was very close to hers. Eric listened and then told her bake cookies and take them over to the neighbors, and then do that again or invite the neighbors over for a meal. And when spring comes and the goats start making noise, she will have made friends and maybe instead of anger, the neighbors will say, “That Emily, such a sweet woman and a good neighbor. We’ll put up with the goats.” Eric explained that instead of breath-holding, waiting in fear of something bad to happen, giving power to the neighbors to decide how things will go, "take action to create a good situation, a good relationship. Use your power and agency in ways that empower you. Create conditions for good things to happen."

Eric’s a genius, as wise as they come, though he wouldn't say this of himself, of course, so I'll say it for him. And genius isn't an exaggeration. As the meditation teacher Jonathan Kabat-Zinn wrote, “Intelligence is the door to freedom and alert attention is the mother of intelligence.”

I share about my friend because I've noticed a little change happening for me. In the past, I’ve been like the neighbor with his brake problem or Emily with the held breath anticipating disaster, but I want to be more like Eric. Thanks to the attention walks and deep reading practices I started in January, I'm moving the needle in Eric's direction. I’m not saying I’ve had a total transformation, but I do have fewer instances of “I wish I would have asked …” just one more question. I’m experiencing the pragmatic application of these skills to any given day’s projects, in ways I think would make Eric grin with satisfaction. I seem to be moving more slowly and deliberately. I will look at something several times before acting or switching tasks. I narrow and then widen my focus—what’s connected, what’s underneath, what’s behind this? Deliberate, slow down, do less, dig into my resources and use my own powers. Attention is the mother of intelligence, indeed. 

I hope when I’m in my 70s like Eric that paying attention will just be my default, ingrained as my way of being in the world. I believe that giving something or someone our attention is an act of care and love. Think about the last time you were offered this gift from another human being. It’s rare and precious. And when do you do this for others? How do you know you are giving your full attention? And it’s not about going around fixing things or people, either, but rather how we approach everything: that we strive to really see others and to see well and accurately, without imposing ourselves or our assumptions, falling prey to various distortions of vision. 

If you read this, Eric Darby, thank you. A thousand times, thank you.