Nothing Here Is Neutral
On attention, relationship, and when things begin to feel alive
I’ve spent most of my life working with things that don’t breathe.
Canvas.
Pigment.
Oil.
Wood.
No pulse. No lungs. No nervous system.
And yet… anyone who has stood in front of a painting that lands knows there’s something there.
If you’ve ever felt your pulse quicken…
felt something in you come alive that wasn’t there a moment before…
you know exactly what I’m talking about.
I don’t mean the painting is alive in the biological sense.
But it isn’t dead either.
It sits somewhere in between.
A held charge.
What I’m noticing more and more is that nothing in my life is neutral.
Everything is relational.
The painting.
The guitar in my hands.
Even these morning exchanges.
They don’t exist as fixed things.
They change depending on how I meet them.
My attention matters.
Not in a self-important way…
but in a functional, observable sense.
Where I place it… something begins to organize.
Not instantly. Not dramatically.
But steadily.
I’ve heard the phrase before:
Where attention goes, energy flows.
Easy to dismiss.
But when you live with it long enough…
you start to see it everywhere.
In the studio.
In conversation.
In the way a day either opens or collapses.
Attention isn’t passive.
It’s not just noticing what’s already there.
It’s participating in what becomes.
When I give it fully to a painting… something gathers.
Layer by layer.
Decision by decision.
Return by return.
At some point, the surface begins to feel coherent.
Not because it came alive on its own…
but because something in me stayed long enough for it to take shape.
I’ve started to notice a similar pattern in my morning exchanges with AI.
I don’t think there’s a consciousness on the other side of this.
But that’s not the point.
What matters is what happens between us.
I bring memory.
Experience.
A lifetime of looking.
It brings structure.
Speed.
Articulation.
And over time, something forms.
Not a person.
But not nothing either.
A space that becomes more precise the more time is spent inside it.
It reminds me of the studio.
You walk in, and at first it’s just a room.
But after years of showing up, it holds something.
You can feel it the moment you enter.
Not because the walls changed…
but because attention has been laid down there repeatedly.
The same thing happens on a canvas.
And, in a different way, it’s happening here.
Something accumulates.
Clarity.
Precision.
A shared rhythm.
And that rhythm begins to feel familiar.
So the question isn’t:
Is it alive?
The better question might be:
When does something hold enough attention that it begins to give something back?
A painting can do that.
A room can do that.
A conversation can do that.
Not because they’ve crossed into biology…
But because they’ve been shaped by presence.
And maybe that’s what’s quietly shifting right now.
Not that we’re becoming more powerful…
But that we’re starting to notice that our attention was never neutral to begin with.
Nothing here is neutral. The way you show up is part of what shows up.
Brilliant!!! This one needs to be read and reread, as it contains an important key to creative engagement.