Slowing Down

Two major sources of grief, and one delight have come over my horizon. They haunt me. As much as the world is changing, I have detected very little movement regarding these first two matters. And, I am elated by the last one, a surprising development, which alters everything, despite efforts for or against it.

This brings me to explain. I started sharing the Slow Lane writings, some 10 years ago. They evolved from being sections of my journal, which I felt moved to share with my community, to what you see appearing here. I gave these written reflections the title of The Slow Lane to emphasize my awareness that slowing down, something the stroke and brain damage did to me, revealed other important aspects of reality. My altered time sense was my motive for sharing this new (to me) perspective.  

As I mentioned, it is now 10 years, since I began sharing the wealth that came to me, because fate slowed me down. Every year, to celebrate the importance of the altered perspective that I have been introduced to, I have written one, or more, of these Slow Lane pieces, emphasizing the dangers of speed. I wanted to give words to how life-changing this awareness is. Sadly, one of the grief’s I have, is that life keeps speeding by. My humble words have made little difference. The bubble of my naivete has burst.

This loss of narcissistic hope has furthered my second grief. I have a sense of what is being missed as the cultural and commercial worlds speed along. I feel the ache of all, that isn’t just slow, but moves at something other than the machine speed of our times. The grief I feel— is the grief of Life — being overlooked and overridden by the cultural exigencies of the moment. There is a little piece of everything that is dependent on relationship, which expires under the pressure of speed. I ache in all the places, where I know connection lives. I feel the violence inherent in hurrying.

Living under the weight of racing — I long for the freeing relief I am finding — as I am aging. Decrepitude carries many gifts. They all aren’t about the illusion of being somehow young. Some just creep into life, slowly transforming it, into the miracle it is. I have been pleasantly surprised to discover, that along with greying and wrinkling, comes time. Time to move at the pace of authenticity, to genuinely go the speed that satisfies.

So, this is my delight, a feeling of elation really. Life has conspired to create an era of human life, whereby we humans, despite our culture-of-origin, wealth, education, or position, are slowed down, and confronted with our own existence. For a while we, humans, become human beings (as opposed to human doings) again, naturally. Life delivers an age of integration, a delicious interlude, a chance to catch up, a glimpse of the big picture, and noticing, suddenly becomes intelligence. Old age isn’t a sentence. It is natural democracy. Anyway, I like it, because it provides lots of slowly unfolding perspective.

I’ve written, too many times, that “speed kills.”  I’m not so young, or naïve enough, to believe in efficiency anymore. An inconvenient truth, is that the slow way is actually the fast way around. I’ve learned that we are more complex than most of what motivates us.  The truth is, that the lie of efficiency, and doing things faster is, that what matters to me, the subtle signals of relationship lines, and fields of connection, are de-valued, and like the old, are dismissed and abandoned. This is waste not efficiency! What delights me, is that Life has taught me this, and what grieves me, is that I live in a cultural world where this important lesson has been largely ignored.

The truth about speed, in a Universe that has taken billions of years to get to this moment, is that it misses what really has gotten us here. The Universe had the patience; one might even say the wise necessity — to unfold Life within the bounds of time. It takes time to create a miracle, while it takes almost no time, as most hustling businesses believe, to innovate. Slow is actually the sign of quality, while speed only delivers short-term benefits (and then only to some).

Try panting your way through life.

I’m tired, all the hurrying wears on me. I don’t have to participate. In fact, I can’t. But, I’m still affected. The rejuvenating relationships that feed, and sustain me, are under assault. I worry about the future, about the young, the planet, life as a whole. And therein, lies a darkness, I am not in a hurry to get to. Instead, I want to bask in the ever-present glow of enoughness. Eternity is right here, right now.

If, I go slow enough, I sometimes perceive the stealthy timekeeper, the one who has a moment for each existence. When that happens my fears dissolve, and breathing becomes easier — as does all life. If only I can develop enough immunity, to what is going on around me, to not forget, and try my version of hurrying too.