Attention is All You Need: Art Appreciation to Increase What You Love in the World
One of my hobbies is visiting art museums. One of the major perks of living in a city is the number of art museums that can be casually visited.
Abstract art can be a difficult genre to enjoy. Unlike representational art that depicts specific landscapes or figures, abstract art combines circles and squares, or features patterns and textures that don’t necessarily correlate with concrete objects. I believe that many people who find art confusing or inaccessible often have abstract art in mind.
Some say that it’s important to feel art with your own unique sensibilities. But perhaps only those with a rich sense of feeling can truly do this. Simply staring at abstract art, I feel nothing. However, I can enjoy abstract art. There’s a trick to it.
How to enjoy abstract art
That trick involves making assumptions, believing, and coming to like something.
First, assume in your mind that the art piece in front of you is of great value. This is the first step.
Then, believe in that assumption. This could be described as convincing yourself. At first glance, it may look like a meaningless picture, but try to genuinely believe that it holds great value.
Furthermore, try to like that piece. Ponder on which aspects you might come to like, and focus on the details while observing the entirety. As you engage with it, you might begin to realize that you don’t necessarily dislike its shapes or patterns.
What once appeared flat and merely geometric may begin to seem like a sophisticated design. Slight distortions might remind you of the aesthetics of “wabi-sabi” (the Japanese concept of beauty in imperfection). You might sense tranquility or ripples of emotion from its patterns or textures.
When you stumble upon these subtle realizations or self-suggestive ideas, embrace them. This acceptance starts a loop of believing in the art’s value and growing to like it.
The Rewards of Appreciation
It doesn’t always work out. However, when it works, the art becomes one of my favorites. I’ve added yet another thing I like in the world.
Increasing the things you like is beneficial. Actively discovering your likes is a joy. Moreover, the more things you like, the more you can enjoy life.
It’s not necessary to universally love everything. However, even overlooked things can potentially become beloved by proactively assuming and giving them a chance. Like is a richness available for free, something you can actively increase.
You might have noticed by now, but this trick isn’t limited to abstract art.
Stare at the walls of your room. Assume that the cup or pen you always use has great value. Look for something to like in the cityscape visible from your daily path, the aged traffic light, the signboard of a new shop. Seek like in your daily life.
With the right approach, you can find things to like and to love everywhere. You don’t need to tell anyone, so there’s no need to be embarrassed. It’s all about engaging your mind and stirring your heart. All you need is attention.
To openly and proactively observe the world around you, you might need a bit of a trick. Meeting a good piece of abstract art might give you a nudge in the right direction. If you can grasp that trick, with your mind and heart, you can enhance your richness.
Meaning of “Attention Is All You Need”
The current chat AI technology is underpinned by the Transformer architecture, which was proposed in the paper titled “Attention Is All You Need” by Vaswani and others. The title of my essay is an homage to this paper.
In the Transformer approach, when a chat AI reads vast amounts of text to learn languages and concepts, it hypothesizes which words within the sentences should be focused on and learns while weighting them accordingly. This has dramatically improved the linguistic capabilities of AI.
Both the mechanism of the Transformer architecture, through which we and chat AIs perceive language, and my essay’s approach to embracing the world positively share a common keyword: “Attention.”
I believe this is not a mere coincidence. It signifies that attention, assumptions, and beliefs play a role in recognizing concepts, deriving meaning, and shaping values.
