Words from Others on this Topic

Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.

David Foster Wallace, 2005, from the speech “2005 Commencement Address at Kenyon College”

Modern humanity is sick with FOMO – Fear of Missing Out – and though we have more choice than ever before, we have lost the ability to really pay attention to whatever we choose.

Yuval Noah Harari, 2017, from the book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow