THE ANATOMY OF CONSCIOUSNESS ■ 33Each person allocates his or her limited attention either by focus
ing it intentionally like a beam of energy—as do E. and R. in the
previous examples—or by diffusing it in desultory, random movements.
The shape and content of life depend on how attention has been used.
Entirely different realities will emerge depending on how it is invested.
The names we use to describe personality traits—such as extrovert, high
achiever, or paranoid—refer to the specific patterns people have used to
structure their attention. At the same party, the extrovert will seek out
and enjoy interactions with others, the high achiever will look for useful
business contacts, and the paranoid will be on guard for signs of danger
he must avoid. Attention can be invested in innumerable ways, ways
that can make life either rich or miserable.
The flexibility of attentional structures is even more obvious when
they are compared across cultures or occupational classes. Eskimo hunt
ers are trained to discriminate between dozens of types of snow, and are
always aware of the direction and speed of the wind. Traditional Melane
sian sailors can be taken blindfolded to any point of the ocean within
a radius of several hundred miles from their island home and, if allowed
to float for a few minutes in the sea, are able to recognize the spot by
the feel of the currents on their bodies. A musician structures her
attention so as to focus on nuances of sound that ordinary people are
not aware of, a stockbroker focuses on tiny changes in the market that
others do not register, a good clinical diagnostician has an uncanny eye
for symptoms—because they have trained their attention to process
signals that otherwise would pass unnoticed.
Because attention determines what will or will not appear in con
sciousness, and because it is also required to make any other mental
events—such as remembering, thinking, feeling, and making deci
sions—happen there, it is useful to think of it as psychic energy. Atten
tion is like energy in that without it no work can be done, and in doing
work it is dissipated. We create ourselves by how we invest this energy.
Memories, thoughts, and feelings are all shaped by how we use it. And
it is an energy under our control, to do with as we please; hence,
attention is our most important tool in the task of improving the quality
of experience.
Enter the Self
But what do those first-person pronouns refer to in the lines above,
those wes and our s that are supposed to control attention? Where is the
I, the entity that decides what to do with the psychic energy generated