There is everything to learn from watching an infant grow into the world. In French we say éveil, awakening, which is an image that I like—as if we awaken to the person that we already are, which is a process which only ends when we die.

But that is not where I was intending to go with my initial thought — it was along the lines of Attention and Intention.

An infant, as its awareness expands, is a remarkable thing in that nothing escapes its noticing. The most subtle changes are seemingly obvious; the most minor defect in something is clear.

It would be impossible to remain so aware in the world without total continuous exhaustion; and yet, imagine that for a moment—hold that simultaneously in the head and heart.

What would your worldfulness be like with even only a fraction of an infant’s level of attention? How much more deeply would we live?

Though I should be careful here — watching an infant, I see intention too, or volonté: the whole self fixed on a thing, completely. What is absent is agenda — the web of purposes that silently pre-filters the world before we have even looked at it. To recover even a fraction of that attention would require setting the agenda down.

I mentioned earlier the idea of awakening to the person we are from birth to death—but what I see now is that, as beautiful an idea as that may be, it is only idealistically true, and for a limited time. Once we have our footing, it seems rather that we tend to pursue going back to sleep.