After I shared The Physics of Distribution, someone asked a question that stopped me in my tracks:

“If distribution is motion, then where does the energy come from — and what causes it to decay?”

That question (from @kmacb.eth) is the reason this essay exists. If the first piece was about how ideas move, this one is about what powers that movement — and why most of that energy disappears before anything meaningful happens.

Because motion isn’t free, nothing spreads just because it’s good. Something has to fuel it — attention, pain, belief, identity, liquidity. And something always pushes back — friction, confusion, skepticism, fatigue.

So this is the sequel: The Thermodynamics of Attention.
Where energy comes from. What resists it? Why does fatigue set in? How systems like Drawcast manage to store attention instead of leaking it. Why do some ideas become culture while others fade into silence?

Energy in physics is the capacity to do work.
Energy in networks is the capacity to create action — a tap, a mint, a reply, a ritual.

Attention isn’t just awareness — it’s potential energy waiting to become movement.

Like energy, it can:

• Enter a system (through curiosity, pain, identity, novelty, belief)

• Meet resistance (friction, confusion, hesitation)

• Leak (into apathy, silence, forgetfulness)

• Or be stored (as culture, identity, on-chain memory, tokens, habits)

Most products don’t die from lack of attention —
They die because attention was never captured and stored.

Energy flows into a system when something demands action.

• Pain — the strongest fuel; pain pulls harder than promotion.

• Curiosity & play — low-pressure energy that invites participation.

• Identity & status — “This says something about who I am.”

• Belief — attention + conviction = energy that lasts longer than novelty.

• Liquidity — potential energy, waiting for a story or incentive to activate it.

Every action costs energy.

• Too many steps.

• Wallet pop-ups.

• No emotional payoff.

• No recognition.

• Nothing that signals: you matter here.

This is entropy — energy turning into waste heat.
In networks, it’s attention turning into indifference.

Fatigue isn’t the absence of attention — it’s attention with nowhere to go.

When effort creates no progress, no memory, no value — people burn out.

Fatigue = energy that wasn’t stored.
It's entropy experienced by humans.

And then — a live example.

Drawcast, created by serial-builder @tamastorok.eth, is a Farcaster mini-app where people draw, and others guess. It looks like a simple game. It’s actually a live demonstration of attention physics.

In the first version, users were asked to draw immediately.
Drawing is high effort + social risk. Most people bailed.

Week-one retention: ~18%

Then one change shifted everything:
Guess first. Draw later.

One tap. No vulnerability. Immediate feedback.

Suddenly:

• 69% of new users guessed in their first session

• Week-one retention jumped to ~21%

• Attention stayed long enough to be stored

Drawcast didn’t just grab attention — it stored it.

Users who guessed + opened a chest came back at ~38% retention.
Because their attention became identity, memory, and value.

Once attention is stored, it can return to the system.

Guess → Reward → Identity → Return
Return → Culture → More Users → More Energy

Not perpetual motion — but momentum.

Where does the energy come from?
Attention, pain, belief, identity, play, liquidity.

What resists it?
Friction, confusion, cognitive effort, skepticism.

What leaks?
Attention that isn’t stored — no memory, no reward, no identity.

What stores it?
Culture, on-chain proof, habit, status, tokens, shared memory.

Is the juice worth the squeeze?
Only if attention compounds instead of evaporates.

Distribution isn’t about going viral.
It’s about designing systems that capture attention before it cools — and convert it into something that lasts.

Attention is motion.
Stored attention is gravity.