Attention sounds simple. It isn't. Simone Weil called it the rarest form of generosity. Iris Murdoch saw it as the only way past the ego's distortions. Mary Oliver made it her prayer. Three voices, one question: what happens when you actually look — at another person, at a kestrel, at the world?

Show Notes:

Three thinkers who understood attention not as focus or productivity, but as a moral and spiritual practice.

Voices:

• Simone Weil (1909–1943) — French philosopher and mystic. "Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity."
• Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) — British philosopher and novelist. The kestrel outside the window. Unselfing.
• Mary Oliver (1935–2019) — American poet. "I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention."
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Sources referenced:

• Weil: Gravity and Grace, Waiting for God
• Murdoch: The Sovereignty of Good
• Oliver: "The Summer Day," Upstream, Devotions

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Joanna Macy spent seventy years facing the worst news about the planet — and kept going. Not with optimism, which requires believing things will turn out well. With something harder: active hope. This episode explores what she learned about grief, deep time, and loving a world you cannot fix.

Show Notes:

Joanna Macy (1929–) is a Buddhist teacher, environmental activist, and scholar of systems thinking. Her work on the intersection of ecology, spirituality, and action has shaped generations of activists and thinkers.

Sources referenced:

• Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We're in Without Going Crazy (with Chris Johnstone)
• World as Lover, World as Self
• Interviews and talks
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Topics: Active hope vs optimism, the Spiral (gratitude → grief → seeing with new eyes → going forth), deep time, honouring pain for the world, staying present without numbing

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