Attention is a moral act: It creates, brings aspects of things into being.

British psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and philosopher Iain McGilchrist contemplates the morality of attention in his 2009 book “The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.” In his writing, he suggests the effects of attention are cyclical: The attention we give something affects how we perceive it, and vice versa. McGilchrist’s research in brain lateralization (i.e., how the left and right hemispheres of our brains each function) raises questions about how we choose to make sense of the world around us. Most notably, this quote serves as a stark reminder that our attention has the power to inform our inner and outer worlds, and we must wield that power wisely.