His door-stopper of a non-fiction collection is called “ Attention: Dispatches From the Land of Distraction,” but most of the pieces inside are almost defiantly unrelated to the title. The novelist Joshua Cohen has also made an entry into the category of attention literature - but an ambiguous one. No spoilers, of course, but as for what becomes of Hark, can a man who stands for pure focus fare well in the land of the perpetually distracted? They assume his various archery poses, claiming they produce instant focus. The community of lost souls that clusters around him firmly believes his technique of “mental archery” will transform the world. His message, which he denies even having, is simple - to help people focus, in the office and in the home. Hark never meant to be a guru: It was the people around him who anointed him. In his new book, “ Hark,” Lipsyte, 50, takes on the attention industry with a satire centered on a reluctant messiah named Hark. Leave it to the novelist Sam Lipsyte to revel in the absurdity.
How can we even talk about such mundane solutions as downloading apps to rein in our screen time when we are actually engaged in an epic fight to stay present in our brief, precious lives? Instead, she offers this: “A real withdrawal of attention happens first and foremost in the mind.”Īs this aspirational if vague prescription makes clear, there’s a disconnect between offering concrete tips for staying off your phone and trying to capture the existential urgency of our plight.
She acknowledges the difficulty of withdrawing from social media platforms when our lives, both social and professional, are ever-more dependent on them. “I’m looking for a broader shift in how we even conceive of what is worthwhile.” “There is such a craving for quick fixes in general, self-help books, things you will download,” she said.
For Odell, these include the corrosive concept of “productivity,” the idea that time is money and what matters is making more of it. Inevitably, an author’s larger concerns are embedded in any meditation on attention. The sentiment behind “How to Do Nothing” is one of defiance, pushing back against the notion of being perpetually plugged in, whether we are working or simply managing our online “brands.” Odell grew up in Cupertino, just blocks away from what is now the Apple campus (her mother was an employee at Hewlett-Packard), and as she was working on her book, she would sit for hours in the Morcom Rose Garden in Oakland, noticing her surroundings, with no particular agenda.
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