What resists final understanding demands ongoing rather than settled attention

Evidence

What’s more, even after years of observing the same crows, their behavior—like the seemingly haphazard procedure of Dickinson’s bird—is ultimately inscrutable to me (as much as mine must be to them). Just as Dickinson’s bird “row[s] him softer” to some unknown “home,” nothing indicates that something exists beyond you as much as its departure into the sky, as sudden and unceremonious as its arrival. All of this makes for a being that cannot be “understood” or “interpreted” (I-It), only “perceived” (I-Thou). And that which cannot be understood—a once-and-for-all matter—demands constant and unmixed attention, an ongoing state of encounter. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 381

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the I-It / I-Thou distinction (Buber) as the axis on which Odell’s account of attention to wild beings turns.
• XREF: Connects to Martin Buber’s I and Thou directly, and to The Soundscape’s figure-ground account of attending to keynote sounds that never resolve.