How I Am Reclaiming My Attention

And, I think, reclaiming my life

We had a snow day!! Bentley hated it!

Every sixty seconds on the Internet, 241 million emails are sent, 4 million Facebook posts are liked, 360,000 Tweets are published, 6.3 million searches happen on Google, 694 thousand reels are DMed on Instagram, Amazon shoppers spend $455,000, and people watch 43 years of streamed content. All of it is competing for one thing: your attention.

Where you spend your attention is where you will have spent your life, and every moment of every day, there are thousands of people, brands, and algorithms working to claim it.

This is something I learned the hard way during Trump’s first presidency. I thought if didn’t obsess over every single move he made, I would be insulating myself from pain and fail to show solidarity with my neighbors who were afraid or at risk. What I did not realize is that my attention is my life, and my life was getting absorbed into the chaotic tornado of politics. This has real consequences, none of which included Trump changing his mind or policies. Instead, my world’s midpoint became this man: What did he do today? He said what?! How can people still be okay with this?! Who liked that post? You’re kidding!

It’s like he (and in general, politics) became a magnet in every conversation.

For four years I was swept into the consuming fire and do you know what it changed? Nothing. Because 24/7 internet consumption and outrage is not the same thing as real activism. All my overconsumption did was cause me real life anxiety, drain my capacity for real life relationships, and disrupt my real life purpose. But I kept going because I thought that taking a break would mean I was naive to reality.

What I didn’t realize was this: Trump is not the center of reality. American politics is not the center of reality. I am also real. My friends— who are conservatives and liberals and have dinner together and go to church together and take trips together— are also real. My church who provides housing for unhoused people every winter is real. The women I stood with at the Capitol to protest the lack of protections for children against gun violence in Tennessee are real. The elderly folks we did crafts with at a memory care facility in Franklin are real. My neighbor who called and asked for a match at 9pm so her kid could have lit candles on his birthday cake is real.

Trump and Elon Musk and AOC and Nancy Pelosi and Jeff Bezos and Instagram and Fox News and CNN do not get to take that reality away unless you and I let them. But they are not the only real or even the most important parts of reality.

This is where I need to say that being informed matters. It does. But I also want to say that our 2025 definition of “being informed” is often full-blown information gluttony. And it is not normal. The rate and intensity and capacity at which we are pummeled with information and expected to digest it is not normal. Until a few decades ago, people got their news from a handful of TV stations and newspapers. Before that, news arrived the next day or week through papers and radio broadcasts. We are the first humans in history whose attention is being pulled at every second of every day, and we are not only expected to ingest information but digest it with zero lead time. Our brains and bodies are not designed for this.

I fear that, in the end, if we could look back at a montage of our lives, all we’d see are the tops of our heads bent over glowing screens—lost in a reality that was never fully ours. I fear that we, in the name of “activism” or being “aware” would see missed opportunity after missed opportunity to actually be active in our own circles and communities.

Once again, please don’t hear what I’m not saying. I am not suggesting we ignore Trump as if his actions don’t matter. I am not saying we disengage from reality, move to Italy, and drink cocktails on the beach. I am not saying we shouldn’t resist. I’m not even saying we need to stop being on social media. But I am saying we need to be more critical about what true, effective resistance is. We need to be more critical about where we absorb information, and at what pace.

I am also naming my increasing skepticism that devoting our most valuable attention to a cascade of 0s and 1s on a server in a California desert is the best way to engage with the world meaningfully. I fear that our constant online activity is paralyzing us, keeping us from fully participating in the reality right in front of us. Right in front of me.

Here’s another lesson I learned during Trump’s first presidency, courtesy of Brian Zahnd: “Christianity without transcendence degenerates into politics.” Politics matters, but God’s restoration of the world is not going to happen through a political party. This is not an excuse to disengage, but it is a reminder that our primary allegiance is not to Trump or Harris or Republicans or Democrats or even to America, but our allegiance belongs to the Kingdom of God whose King reigns over all.

When Jesus turned the world upside down, it wasn’t by rallying Rome’s wealthiest elites or orchestrating a coup against Caesar. In fact, Jesus seemed remarkably unconcerned with Caesar. Instead, Jesus went grassroots, gathering a ragtag group of overlooked people and teaching them how to love others like God loved them. As we know, this self-sacrificial, enemy-loving Way cost him and many of his disciples their lives.

I don’t know about you, but that’s the kind of life I crave—one where I have something worth dying for, not something I’d kill for. One where I turn the other cheek, again and again, instead of throwing punches. One where I absorb shock instead of spread it. One where I stand up for what I believe in without crushing people who disagree with me. One where my love is on fire, not my tongue.

There’s a funny story in Mark 12 where a group of Pharisees and Herodians tried to trap Jesus with a question about taxes: Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Jesus responded by looking at a denarius and asking them, “Whose head is this and whose title?” They said Caesar. Jesus answered, “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”

I think of this in the context of American politics. Look at the ballot: whose face is on there? Look at the dollar: whose image is printed? Give to American politics what belongs to American politics- perhaps your vote, your taxes, your participation in democracy, your protest, your service- but don’t forget to give to God what belongs to God.

What belongs to God, you might ask?
The wonder of it all… everything.

Sending all my love,
Savannah