I have focused in the main text on macroscopic expressions of our freedom – journeys to London, plans to get fit, decisions to take an umbrella. There is much more going on in the humble interstices of our agency. Particularly striking is the most mysterious of all preparations to act: the (meta-)act of paying attention. While this is not central to my argument, I find this exquisite exercise of self-control, of promoting our own agency, fascinating. I hope readers will forgive my self-indulgence.

Attention – the active direction of the mind upon some object, event, or topic – is etymologically “reaching” (“tendere”) towards (“ad”). It is intentionality in italics; in some respects, a more muscular or active mode of this relationship between consciousness and object. We may direct our attention in the literal sense of looking or ear-cocking or groping in one direction rather than another; and in the more rarefied sense of deciding at what level we should focus our interest. We may look through a window at a landscape, or examine a fly crawling over the pane, tune into a conversation, or return to the page on which we are planning next year's events. We may employ a range of mental techniques and physical kit to enhance our capacity to scale up and scale down our attention, using literal and metaphorical microscopes and telescopes.

Paying willed attention, and controlled switching of attention, are the most intimate means by which we act on ourselves, in order to gear up for action. “Keeping an eye on” something, some situation, or some ongoing process, “listening out for” a sound indicative of an important signal – these belong to the ground floor of regulated attention. We may do this unaided or with the help of others who may point things out to us, instruct us in what to look out for, or help us to “snap out of” one mode of attention in order to adopt another. Such are the delicate levers by which we can act upon ourselves to enhance and regulate our agency.