Go Into the World and Listen

By Margaret Hawkins

Simone Weil supposedly said that attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. We speak of paying attention, as if this gift is a currency. Writers certainly want to be paid in this currency (as well as in others, let me go on record as saying), but attention is also what writers pay to the world. Annie Dillard advises us to “admire the world for never ending on you – as you would an opponent, without taking your eyes from him, or walking away.”

How to begin...