Golden email: Attention

how do you get people's eyes drawn towards you? people pay their attention to things that could be a threat, probably an evolutionary thing (it works for potential rewards too, but not as effectively). we pay attention to loud, big, strange things. things that amaze you, like an unnecessarily, unhumanly detailed church, or the biggest mountain you've ever seen, or a really strange-looking guy . or if everything else is big, we rather notice the small thing that sticks out from the rest. you won't notice one of many things in a collection. you don't pay attention to each single cow in a herd of 20 identical cows, but a weird looking one gets your attention. you pay attention to movement and contrast/sharp colors, and difference between colors (like a red sock hanging out of the washing machine, compared to a white sock doing the same - unless your washing machine is red). light gets more attention than darkness. your eyes get drawn to humans in general, faces specifically, and even more specifically eyes. isn't it weird, or normal, that eyes like other eyes? you pay attention to edges more than a similarly sized area on a homogenic surfaces that doesn't have an edge.

but we can also train our attention to not get drawn to stupid things, because we are intelligent beings. well, everyone except you.

stories and melodies stick in our minds. the better stories and melodies, the more they stick? i'm not sure, but the simpler they are, the more they stick. the ones that affect our emotions stick with us. stupidly simple (and simply stupid?) oneliners and quotes stick in our minds, not necessarily the most true or interesting ones.

/kbrecordzz, 2024-05-08