Attention is the mechanism by which we reteach things their loveliness

Evidence

“Saint Francis and the Sow” is a poem about attention. Indeed, it is best read as an allegory of radical human attention, since it is precisely radical human attention that is the way we “reteach a thing its loveliness”—and in so doing, cause its bud-nature to flower forth. Is this mysticism? We would say no. A mystification? Not at all. A mystery? Sure. If you like. But that doesn’t make it wrong, or “fake,” or “just talk.” — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 472

Categorization

• DEFINE: Pins down the chapter’s core claim: radical human attention as the reteaching mechanism — the manifesto’s positive theory of attention’s function, distinct from its negative extraction account.
• XREF: connects to: Attention consists in labor that augments our ability to notice the neglected — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 269