A Reflection on the Economy of Attention
My grandparents, I’ve said before, were coffee farmers, though I suspect they would have laughed at the title. They simply grew coffee. But what stays with me most is not the agricultural enterprise, impressive as it was, but the morning ritual that accompanied the first cup. My grandmother, a woman of formidable calm and quiet strength, approached her coffee as one might approach sacred liturgy: slowly, attentively, with great reverence and not a hint of hurry.
The process began not with boiling water or clicking buttons, but with cherries, deep red and gleaming, laid out on the wide concrete slab she called the drying yard. There they would bask in the sun, gently surrendering their moisture, their sweetness, their youthful exuberance, until what remained was something leaner, stronger, more enduring. The beans, once dried to her precise satisfaction, were roasted over a modest fire, the scent rising with the woodsmoke and birdsong in the early light. Still, the ritual was not complete. The beans would rest, yes, rest, as if even they needed a contemplative pause before fulfilling their destiny. Only then would she grind them, slowly, by hand, using a wooden pestle worn smooth by decades of devotion, a mortar carved into a tree stump. She would then coax the dark, fragrant brew through a square of cheesecloth into a waiting cup.
The making of the coffee, I should point out, took longer than the drinking of it. But that, I believe, was entirely the point. For my grandparents, time was not a thing to be defeated. It was an ingredient in the flavour of life itself.
Contrast, if you will, this slow alchemy with a recent episode of mine at the airport (a marvel of modern efficiency my grandmother never experienced). There, I conjured up a cup of “fresh-ground” coffee and received it, steaming and scalding, in less time than it takes to recite the alphabet. All I did was simply place a cup strategically, press a button for my brew of choice, Americano, this time and there it was! A feat of wizardry, no doubt. But as I stood holding that cup, I found myself oddly unmoved. The coffee was, to my surprise, drinkable. But something else, something older and quieter, had been left behind in the haste. It was, in the truest sense of the word, instantaneous, and therein lay its limitation.
That small moment, in the bright blur of the terminal, lingered with me. Not because the coffee was dreadful (it wasn’t), but because it seemed to crystallise something larger: a shift in our very relationship with time. We have, by some sleight of cultural hand, come to prize speed over substance, and convenience over care. And while I am not immune to the charms of expedience,I do, after all, own a kettle that sings when it’s ready, I find myself increasingly drawn to something slower. Not from some cranky nostalgia, but from a very present need.
Slowness, you see, is not merely a matter of velocity. It is a posture, a disposition, a way of leaning into the world rather than rushing past it. It prioritises presence over productivity, conversation over conclusion, soul over schedule. It is, in its own gentle way, an act of resistance against the tyranny of efficiency.
I wonder what we are missing in our perpetual acceleration. What quiet beauty is trampled underfoot as we race toward the next thing? The lingering pause in a friend’s voice. The subtle shift in a child’s question. Slowness invites us to notice again, to feel again, to care again.
In the reflections to follow, I hope to explore what I’ve come to think of as the economy of attention, the inner currency by which we measure meaning and depth in our ever-noisier lives. We shall contemplate a few forgotten virtues: Slowness, yes, but also Silence, Presence, Attention, Meditation, and Community. Not because we need more, but because we need more of what matters.
Let us begin, then, not with critique, but with curiosity. What might we recover, not by acquiring, but by attending? What might change if we dared to believe that slowness is not a liability, but a quiet and necessary grace?
Let us steep, like the best coffee, and see what flavour the waiting brings.
