In the spring of 1942, Simone Weil wrote to a man who had spent most of his adult life in bed. He had done something for Weil that most busy, distracted people rarely do for each other: he had read her writing, closely, and paid it real attention. In the original French it reads, “L’attention est la forme la plus rare et la plus pure de la générosité.” Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. What Weil meant by attentionFor Weil, attention was not effort.