Attention Is the Only Scarce Resource Left

To read like a writer is to notice how an effect was achieved, not merely that it worked. It means slowing down at the moment a paragraph moves you and asking what the author did with rhythm, with word choice, with what they chose to leave out. Every good book is also a manual, if you read it that way.

Attention has quietly become the only genuinely scarce resource in a life saturated with information. Everything is available; almost nothing is absorbed. The writers and readers who thrive are not the ones who consume the most but the ones who have learned to protect a few hours of undivided focus from an economy built to fracture it.

Voice and style are not the same thing, though the two are endlessly confused.