Reality is detailed, and attention is finite. As I get older, I find myself noticing less. I think this is partly because adults are socialized not to stare, and to pretend like they know what’s going on.

Children are not embarrassed by gawking. And they learn much faster than adults. I think there may be a connection here. Wonder and curiosity require open-mouthed attention, and are incompatible with looking slick.

So I have tried to cultivate conscious noticing. When I enter a room, I look at all the corners of the ceiling. I try to determine if anything is different than last time, if it’s somewhere I’ve been before.

But my old brain is like a brittle, saturated sponge. The details of the surroundings aren’t vacuumed up the way they used to be.

My brain seems to chunk experience into various categories, and then label them “boring”. Even when I look around, it’s hard to see things.

But there is a way to disable this chunking mechanism: pay attention to a single thread of reality.

The other day, as I was getting out of the shower and thinking about this essay, I admired all the different shades of white and cream and grey paint in the bathroom, which I had never noticed before.

My brain had chunked my surroundings, but not by colour.

My favourite way to employ this is with recorded music, as a way to learn from and find joy in songs I’ve listened to over and over.

Sometimes, I’ll listen to the whole sonic and emotional gestalt. Other times, I will concentrate entirely on the narrative. Or the rhyme scheme. Or the subtleties of the singer’s enunciation (an underrated aspect of good music, in my opinion). Or the harmonies and backing vocals. Or the chord structure. Or the bass. Or the drums. Or the synthesizers. Or the arrangements and dynamics, and how the producer has engineered the energy of the song. Or the little weird sounds that you don’t really notice unless you listen for them.

When I try to listen to everything, I can’t give anything the attention it deserves.

Even after listening to No Woman, No Cry countless times — to the lyrics, and the grit in Marley’s voice, and that iconic ringing feedback that gives a sense of the scale of the venue — I had never heard Aston Barrett’s “bump. ba-da-bump. ba-dump-bump-bump. bump bump” bass line, and realized how much it contributed to the total effect. (And I’m a bass player.)

Don’t miss the trees for the forest.