"Attention Deficit Disorder" gets a new meaning

You might have noticed that I rant a lot. You might think that a lot of things bug me, which is both true and not true. It's more like I just look around and see things that I think need fixing. I just see little changes that people can make as individuals and as a larger society that, while not fixing all of our problems, would just make day-to-day life a little easier on everyone.

Most of these things that seemingly bug me are just little things that I'll look at disapprovingly at, but I only say that they bug me just because I think everyone should share their opinions. But when I get right down to it, there's one thing that I think is a huge problem. As a matter of fact, I'd go so far as to say it's The Problem With People, and it's this:

People don't pay attention.

There's a million examples, but it all adds up to people not looking around. In a bigger sense, people don't stop to look at where they are in the world, the place and space they take up, and what it means to those around them, both the complete strangers that they share the sidewalk with for 5 annoying seconds or the friends and family members who they've spent their entire lives around.

I'm guilty of this kind of societal tunnel-vision, too. I've just come to believe that paying attention should be a major societal goal. They should have songs about it in Sesame Street. They should have public service announcements that beg people to pay attention. There should be benefit runs that bring people's attention to paying attention.

Something tells me that someone will comment on this with something like, "What was this about? I stopped reading in the second paragraph."