The Sirens' Call

“The Sirens of lore and the sirens of the urban streetscape both compel our attention against our will. And that experience, having our mind captured by that intrusive wail, is now our permanent state, our lot in life. We are never free of the sirens’ call.”

Hayes’s authorial voice uses parallel references to ancient myth and modern urban life, stressing the ways in which the demand on our attention has become inescapable. The repetition of “sirens” emphasizes the shared power of both mythic and real-world intrusions, establishing the chapter’s central theme of attention as a primal force.

“Attention is the substance of life. Every moment we are awake we are paying attention to something, whether through our affirmative choice or because something or someone has compelled it. Ultimately, these instants of attention accrue into a life.”

In Hayes’s own words, the succinct phrases highlight the essential, universal nature of attention. By linking attention directly to one’s accumulated existence, he underscores its profundity and frames any external claim upon it as potentially existential.

“Now our deepest neurological structures, human evolutionary inheritances, and social impulses are in a habitat designed to prey upon, to cultivate, distort, or destroy that which most fundamentally makes us human.”

Hayes’s diction—words like “prey,” “distort,” and “destroy”—creates a sense of assault on our very humanity. This dire tone reinforces his argument that we inhabit an attention-driven environment that not only shapes our behaviors but can undermine our autonomy and well-being.