Dear Friends
Happy new year. I know. I am late. But it took me a while to get my brain back into gear after I put it to sleep over the holidays.
It wasn’t actually sleeping really, just wandered off. But now that it’s back in working order, I find myself thinking about attention span, letter writing and making time.
Of late, I’ve found my (already short) attention span getting shorter. It’s like there’s this compression going on in my brain even as it tries to expand to take in everything out there and so it short-circuits rather frequently these days and I find myself unable to listen or do anything for sustained periods of time. Except sleep.
I think the same thing happened to my speakers when I overloaded the socket. It went pop, and now it just wheezes.
So I decided to train my attention span over the holidays. I wrote letters. I read letters. I wrote long essays. I listened to podcasts and radio plays. In other words, I went back to long-form. I found myself listening to one-hour radio plays, completely absorbed in the images the spoken word conjured in my mind.
Credit: iStock
The hardest part with any training is getting started. And so I have to thank “Serial” for giving me that push. This is the phenomenally successful podcast where a journalist takes you on her investigation of a real murder and shares with you her doubts and assumptions as she interviews the people involved.
It is a glimpse of where that medium could go and what we will take time to listen to, if the content is compelling enough.
I found the first few episodes riveting but towards the last few, I felt she was spinning it out just a tad – just as Peter Jackson did with the latest “Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies” which is basically 2.5 hours of five armies gathering to capture a mountain of gold. But the special effects were great, so you go for the effects, not the content.
After “Serial”, I found myself intrigued by the medium – it’s really radio making a comeback – and of course, as with any new, rediscovered medium, there’s a lot of garbage out there and you have to be conscientious to seek out the gems from the junk.
And something interesting happened to me along the way – I found my attention span returning. Listening just to voices, without the distraction of images, focuses your mind absolutely and for someone whose mind has a tendency to wander off every few seconds, this is as close to meditation as I can get.
(For those who’s suffering from severe attention deficit disorder brought on the world we live in, BBC Radio 4’s adapation of Neil Gaiman’s “Neverwhere” is a good start to recovery.)
So if I do have a New Year’s resolution, it is consciously working on my attention span so that I am a nice person again.
Now onto my second point – letters. I believe a well-written letter is like gold. It helps you stand out from the dross.
It can be to the point – like the New Year’s letter from Xiaomi’s CEO. “… starting this year, we need to reset our attitude and restart our journey. We should possess the determination to fight this battle to the end, and look towards a bright future for every single one of us at Xiaomi.”
It can be humble – like Andrew Mason’s resignation letter. “I love Groupon, and I’m terribly proud of what we’ve created. I’m OK with having failed at this part of the journey. If Groupon was Battletoads, it would be like I made it all the way to the Terra Tubes without dying on my first ever play through.”
It can be thoughtful and personal – like Tony Fernandes letter to AirAsia’s customers last week.
Allstars to Tony for using my name and not “Valued Customer” and for being human.
What it shouldn’t do is be patronising and robotic – like Marriott’s letter to its customers after it apologised for blocking their wifi devices.
“Marriott International listens to its customers, and we will not block guests from using their personal Wi-Fi devices at any of our managed hotels.
“Marriott remains committed to protecting the security of Wi-Fi access in meeting and conference areas at our hotels.
“We will continue to look to the FCC to clarify appropriate security measures network operators can take to protect customer data, and will continue to work with the industry and others to find appropriate market solutions that do not involve the blocking of Wi-Fi devices.”
I happen to collect books about letters and one favourite is Myriam Cyr’s “Letters of a Portuguese Nun”. It tells the story of a forbidden love between a 26-year-old nun, Mariana Alcoforado, and a French officer in the mid 17th century and publishes the letters that first saw the light of day circa 1669.
The letters are sweet, yearning and poignant. They are also long. I guess people had time to write in the 17th century. I wish we had more time in the 21st century but what’s that saying, “It’s not about time, it’s about making time.”
I wish you all the time you want for yourself.
Yours sincerely
