- Author
- Henrik Karlsson (Escaping Flatland)
- Published
- 4 September 2025
- Kind
- Personal Substack essay with footnotes and quoted examples
- Original
- www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/attention
- Subject
- Mind, attention and practice
- Themes
- Feedback loops, Getting good
What it is
Henrik Karlsson writes the Escaping Flatland newsletter. The essay aims to show sustained attention is vivid and pleasurable, not just a duty. It draws on seduction, meditation and art.
What it says
- Karlsson says sustained attention with delayed satisfaction can intensify desire. Karlsson ties this loosely to dopamine and expectation.
- The essay claims body systems update at different speeds. Frequent switching leaves attention residue.
- Karlsson says anxiety and joy can both loop, giving a panic attack or jhana states.
- The essay says other focuses, such as an octopus or loneliness, may also bloom.
- Karlsson says good art is not about communicating a message. It offers patterns that structure consciousness under sustained attention.
- The essay describes a concert where Karlsson imagined the music as several films.
What evidence it gives
The essay gives personal accounts, quoted writers and footnotes. These include a jhana retreat report, Darwin on an octopus and Chris Olah. It cites no studies for its mechanism. A footnote mentions an unnamed study of 23 minutes to refocus. It admits being unsure of the exact mechanics.
Interests and limits
This is one writer's reflection with a loose scientific gloss. The essay says it is unsure of the mechanics and the timings. The newsletter is funded by paying subscribers. The first section discusses sexual arousal in non-graphic terms. The essay was read in full, but only two reader comments were loaded.
Connections
These links are this wiki's own reading, not claims the sources make.
- Too Fast to Think: The Hidden Fatigue of AI Vibe Coding. Karlsson says frequent switching leaves attention residue, and that sustained attention deepens experience. Schmidt reports fatigue from constant fast review. Read together, that fatigue may be more than overload. It may be the cost of never letting attention bloom.