#attention

We scroll through a hundred faces in minutes—double-tapping, swiping, judging. Yet we feel invisible ourselves. Strange, isn't it? We crave being seen while barely looking at others.

I noticed this at a coffee shop yesterday. Everyone hunched over screens, searching for connection through pixels while actual humans sat inches away. The irony struck me: we're drowning in contact yet starving for recognition.

What is being seen, really? It's not just having eyes land on us. A security camera sees us. So does a distracted stranger.

We scroll past countless faces each day—profile pictures, stories, posts. But how often do we pause to wonder:

What would it mean to truly see another person?

To see someone isn't simply to register their appearance. A camera does that. To see is to recognize something beyond the surface—the weight they carry in the slope of their shoulders, the questions hidden behind their eyes, the histories that shaped the way they hold themselves in the world. But our attention has become a scarce resource, rationed in seconds, distributed across hundreds of partial presences.