Attention (& value)

[This is an evolving post. Moved up from Saturday.]

Uh huh. We've even got the verb right: to pay.

But also, value is differently assigned to/created for public vs. private attention. Depending on who you ask. (& whether you ask them in front of anybody or not.)

Which is more intimate, the public or private paying of attention?

And then, what value does one place on intimacy?

As in a money-economy, people do various things & have various goals & philosophies concerning how best to spend their limited currency. Some are virtuously thrifty. Others make a flashy show of overtipping. Others can't seem to save even enough to scrape by. Some are sanctimonious about it. Some feel better when they whine about it (& we want them to feel better). Some just enjoy being boisterous, because it is their favorite subject & they consider themselves expert. &, sadly, others run around like bankrobbers sticking everybody else up for it.

To return to value (because that's really something): value is most certainly personal & intimate. It becomes insitutional only by bringing enough individuals around to its side. "You" & "I" value some things alike & some things different. Also, I may not value what you value, but I feel an imperative to value that you do. I'm just like that: interested in you. Possibly even nosy.

The currency of our attention is private & individual. Or it's public & institutional. Or it's some fluid combo. Or god how blatant it is. Or look, there's goes a really cute dog!

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[Update: (Tuesday, 9/26) I'd put this verbiage below in the comment box (thus the nocaps style) as a kind of footnote first, but I'm moving up here. I did have Jordan's post in mind, but also some things some others of you have said.)]

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less of a response than a riff on similar, really.

more, perhaps: the attention i give to a poem/book/something else in private is different in quality than the attention i direct to it by making my private attention public. in other words: by pointing. i value the private kind more, in the way people cherish things they keep private but still like things they show around. it's a reader's type vs. a reviewer's type.

some kind of reverse-alchemical change seems to happen when private attention becomes public pointing. i am thinking about the reasons for this. since pointing can be a gift, it is subject to motive (on a scale from genuine excitement to mere flattery on the positive end, to ridicule/humiliation/cruelty on the negative end).

when the object of attention is not object but human i cannot help but anticipate that person's reaction to my attention. that impacts/informs/reveals my action, and my motives include this awareness.

i am speaking from a payer's POV, not a (what?) payee's. there are several reasons (along another similar but differently appointed scale) one might/does want to draw attention to oneself (or the objects one creates; "the work"). just as there are many modes (another scale) in which to do it: "i have made/done this and am proud of this and you might be interested in this." vs. "hey, everybody look at me. i don't care why!" ...stilll thinking.

because...positive pointing (the public paying of positive attention) can be "pure" of motive (conveying genuine excitement or enthusiasm) OR impure of motive, say self-aggrandizing or expert-positioning.

the paying of negative attention is sometimes pure (say, in the case of a bad but fairly argued book review, for instance) OR impure (pointing with the intention to shame/humiliate etc.).

i am just thinking.

i wasn't talking about marketing (and don't care except insofar as it is relied on to sell the books necessary to allow the books to exist, and remembering i have worked as a publicist). that line of thinking (whether self-marketing or the marketing of/for others) is loaded with motive and ends me where many do: i wish there were no such thing as money. (hated the job, liked the results, you know?)

anyway, uh, thanks for pointing.