In Praise of Slowness
Modern life is full of distractions, stimulation and motion. Being still and silent is not considered normal. It took me a while to realise that we live in a world of abundant information but with a little understanding and that a life of hurry is an aggressive, stressed, impatient, and superficial life.
“When things happen too fast, nobody can be certain about anything, about anything at all, not even about himself.”
__Milan Kundera, Slowness
A few years ago I decided to slow down. It didn’t come easy. Slowing down takes time. In a way, it is still a work in progress. To me, one the most significant points in this process has been the discovery that slow does not always mean slow. Slowness is about being calm, more patient and more careful. It is about discovering yourself and making real and meaningful connections, with people, places, cultures. It is about learning and understanding. It is about paying attention to life, choosing quality over quantity
In his 1996 novella Slowness, Milan Kundera make some interesting observations about time and points out the connection between slowness and pleasure on the one hand, and slowness and memory on the other. He writes,
The degree of speed is directly proportional to the intensity of forgetting. From that equation we can deduce various corollaries, for instance this one: or period is given over to the demon of speed, and that is the reason it so easily forgets its own self. Now I would reverse that statement and say: our period is obsessed with the desire to forget, and it is to fulfil that desire that it gives over to the demon of speed; it picks up the pace to show us that is no longer wishes to be remembered; that is tired of itself, sick of itself, that it wants to blow out the tiny trembling flame of memory.
__Milan Kundera
Worth a careful read.