Dear Fellow Mortal,
Before we begin, a word about this edition of the podcast.
Letters from a Mortal is meant to be experienced a little differently from the usual podcast episode.
The pace is slower.
There is more silence.
These letters are meant to be more of a contemplation and an invitation to step away from the noise at least for a few minutes.
They are written mostly for audio, intended for a time of stillness.
There is nothing you need to memorize.
Nothing you need to accomplish.
Simply notice what stays with you.
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I hope you find something in it useful for daily life.
J.W.
📮 Letters from a Mortal
Letters from a Mortal is a series of personal reflections on time, attention, virtue, and the art of living (and dying) well. The word ‘Mortal’ in the title is inspired by the Stoic practice of memento mori. … This series is exclusive to members.
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
The Art of Paying Attention
Letters from a Mortal
Dear Fellow Mortal,
Take a moment to become still. Not perfectly still.
Just still enough to notice where you are. Notice the sounds around you. Notice your breathing. Notice where your mind wants to go next.
Perhaps toward something you need to do.
Something that happened earlier.
Something you are worried might happen later.
For the next few minutes, let it wait.
Today, we’re visiting with Simone Weil, someone who spent much of her short life trying to understand what it meant to truly see another person.
She was a French philosopher, teacher, and spiritual seeker. Though intellectually gifted, she distrusted ideas that remained safely abstract.
At one point, she left the classroom to work in factories, wanting to understand the suffering of ordinary workers from the inside rather than simply think about it from a distance.
Again and again, she returned to one practice: attention.
Weil once wrote:
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
We usually think of generosity as giving something away.
Our money. Our time. Our possessions.
But Weil asks us to consider another kind of giving.
The gift of our attention.
To truly pay attention to another person is to stop, for a moment, making everything about ourselves—to listen without preparing a response, to look without immediately judging, and to allow someone else to exist without demanding that they become something else.
Think about the people you love.
How often are you physically with them but mentally somewhere else?
A phone in your hand.
A task waiting in the background.
Already moving toward what comes next.
Perhaps one of the strange things about “attention” is that we rarely recognize its value until it is gone.
A conversation ends.
A familiar season of life quietly passes.
And suddenly we wish we had looked more closely. Listened more carefully or been there while we were there.
For Weil, attention was more than concentration.
It was a spiritual discipline.
She observed:
“Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.”
You don’t have to share Weil’s religious convictions to feel the weight of the idea. There is something reverent about giving your complete attention to what is in front of you.
A person.
A piece of music.
A tree moving in the wind.
To attend to something is to say, “For this moment, you are worth noticing.”
Look around you now. You could choose one ordinary thing. Maybe there’s something you would normally pass over without seeing.
What would change if you spent more time simply noticing?
The truth is, much of life is ordinary.
Most days will not contain great victories or dramatic revelations. They will be made of meals, conversations, and familiar routines. If we are waiting only for extraordinary moments to awaken us, we may miss most of our lives.
Perhaps the art of living is about learning to see what is already here.
Before you return to your day, consider carrying this one question with you:
“What in my life deserves more of my attention?”
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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Until next time, remember to live.
J.W.
P.S. Feel free to let me know what you think!