How craving attention makes you less creative | Joseph Gordon-Levitt

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 20 August 2019

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Joseph Gordon-Levitt has gotten more than his fair share of attention from his acting career. But as social media exploded over the past decade, he got addicted like the rest of us -- trying to gain followers and likes only to be left feeling inadequate and less creative. In a refreshingly honest talk, he explores how the attention-driven model of big tech companies impacts our creativity -- and shares a more powerful feeling than getting attention: paying attention.**

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This TED Talk features actor, filmmaker, and entrepreneur Joseph Gordon Levitt, recorded live at TED 2019.
0:10.9	Well, first of all, thank you for your attention.
0:14.5	There's nothing quite like being in a room full of people like this where all of you are giving your attention to me, it's a powerful feeling to get attention.
0:25.8	I'm an actor, so I'm a bit of an expert on, well, nothing, really. But I do know what it feels
0:33.5	like to get attention. I've been lucky in my life to get a lot more than my fair share of
0:37.7	attention. And I'm grateful for that because, like I said, it's a powerful feeling. But there's
0:45.2	another powerful feeling that I've also been lucky to experience a lot as an actor. And it's
0:51.1	funny, it's sort of the opposite feeling, because it doesn't come from getting attention.
0:55.4	It comes from paying attention.
0:58.4	When I'm acting, I get so focused
1:01.7	that I'm only paying attention to one thing.
1:05.1	Like, when I'm on set and we're about to shoot,
1:08.4	and the first AD calls out rolling,
1:10.7	and then I hear a speed marker set, and the first AD calls out rolling, and then I hear speed, marker, set,
1:13.5	and then the director calls action.
1:15.8	I've heard that sequence so many times,
1:17.7	like it's become this Pavlovian magic spell for me,
1:21.8	rolling, speed, marker, set, and action.
1:25.4	Something happens to me.
1:26.9	I can't even help it. My attention narrows and everything
1:33.9	else in the world. Anything else that might be bothering me or might grab my attention. It all goes away.
1:41.0	And I just... There. And that feeling... It all goes away, and it's just there.
	...

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