Attention
This theme runs through several big questions. Here are the ones where it plays out.
The questions that illuminate it
Does technological progress improve the human condition?
Each new tool frees us from old burdens, but breeds dependencies and powers we barely control; does technology serve our ends, or silently transform our desires and even who we are? To take a position is to say whether technical progress is a promise to seize or a hold to keep watch over.
Is diverting oneself a flight from what matters, or an art of living?
We spend a growing share of our lives diverting ourselves, and whole industries now compete for every minute of our attention. A flight from what matters, or the art of inhabiting a life no one can spend forever face to face with the essential? To take a position is to say what the hours we give to nothing important are worth.
Should we examine our inner life, or fulfill ourselves first and foremost through action?
Turning inward sheds light on who we are, but can slide into rumination far from the world; throwing oneself into action accomplishes much, but risks dodging the question of who is acting, and for what. To take a position is to say where the self is truly found: in the return to oneself, or in what one does.