Merely reflecting upon my own life, I can see how vastly the kinds of things I find interesting and important have changed. Some topics that used to matter so much to me are now essentially irrelevant except as whimsical amusements, while others that I had never even considered are now my top priorities.
The scary thing is just how easily and imperceptibly these sorts of shifts can happen. I’ve been amazed to observe how much small, seemingly trivial cues build up to have an enormous impact on the direction of one’s concerns. The types of conversations I overhear, blog entries and papers and emails I read, people I interact with, and visual cues I see in my environment tend basically to determine what I think about during the day and, over the long run, what I spend my time and efforts doing. One can maintain a stated claim that “X is what I find overridingly important,” but as a practical matter, it’s nearly impossible to avoid the subtle influences of minor day-to-day cues that can distract from such ideals.
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