Category Archives: Attentiveness

We have all been to events with a keynote speaker. A recognized expert in a subject is given time to inform or inspire.

It is a known meeting structure. The speaker has the microphone. We sit and listen.  

Last week, I talked to a group that does things differently.  They organize gatherings around a keynote listener. (Very cool!) 

The keynote listener is a recognized expert in creating a gathering in which other people feel comfortable sharing their experience and wisdom. The keynote listener listens at this gathering, and then at the end of the meeting, synthesizes and summarizes so that the whole group can benefit from the wisdom of the group.

Are you a part of a group that could benefit from a keynote listener?

And it’s a bad choice.

Clear-eyed and truth-seeking, yes, but not cynical.

Cynicism accepts and reifies the worst parts of the status quo. It paralyzes us and wastes our energy by focusing on things we cannot control.

And it subtly lets us off the hook.  (“Look at those people over there who are the problem.  Nothing I can do about it.”)  The cynic barricades themselves on the moral high ground and feels superior while contributing little.

The cynical mindset forgets that we are all capable of evil and all caught up in a system where it is often hard to do good.

The alternative is to be people with hope to bring – to see the world as it is, and, from there, to love and lead. 

Opportunity and hope are everywhere, but cynical eyes cannot see them.

In the Suscipe prayer, one offers to God four things without reservation: one’s liberty, understanding, memory, and will.

People who do this consistently have always been remarkably valuable to the communities of which they are a part.  They are teachers of what is ultimately valuable, lights on the path of where we are to go.

In our present world, the value of this asset is on the rise.

Consider the Suscipe’s nouns in an age of AI.  Even the models available now are potentially massive aids to our understanding and memory, and they are only going to get better.  Imagine having a brain prosthesis to help you recall and utilize everything you have ever written or read.  With some set-up, this is more or less available now.

But also the risk of losing one’s way is significant.  The digital world is going to get better and better and acting like it knows us.  (It doesn’t.)  This faked understanding will help the Dopamine Cartel* (social media, etc) fragment and sell our attention to the highest bidder, with obvious implications for liberty and will.

The opportunity is clear: Every day, we can offer our liberty, understanding, memory, and will to the Mystery of God.  We can be rooted, or we can be uprooted.

*I borrowed this outstanding metaphor from this blog post.  The dopamine talk starts about a third of the way down the page.

It is possible to not realize that we spend a disproportionate amount of our energy on things of little consequence. When we do, we major in the minor.

We do this with our health when we obsess about a dietary detail, but don’t exercise much or give ourselves the chance to sleep well.

At work this can happen when we clamp down on a problem the resolution of which will not actually move us forward.

And then, with limited time left, we minor in the major.

The tricky part is that majoring in the minor feels like we are doing something productive. We are not.

Let’s major in the major.