Slow down...

Sunday Missive

Note: this piece has a soundtrack. Click on the blue section headings when it works for you.

…you move too fast¹

Paul Simon had that right in 1966 with The 59^th Street Bridge Song. Even then, modernism and the speeding up of life was rearing its crazy head, and the pace of life has only become exponentially faster and more intense since then. Alvin Toffler saw it coming when he wrote Future Shock in 1970, observing more than a half century ago:

Change and novelty boost the psychic price of decision-making.

No doubt if you’ve been on the planet for a number of decades, you have seen and felt the pressure and insanity of accelerating life. It even has a new name: hustle culture.

Even as a kid, I felt it. Part of that was being an observer, ponderer, and bookish introvert, but the extraordinary relief I felt from not being compelled onto the daily hamster wheel of routine and commotion by a rare, unplanned day off from school, such as a snow day, was a vacation for the soul. Likewise, power outages made the world stop for a bit. It was finally quiet, and life was reduced to the basics: keeping warm, clean, fed, and living without external entertainment. I was always disappointed when the power whirred back on, annoyingly bright and noisy.

Many of us neither seek nor enjoy the hustle and bustle of being out and about, shopping, running errands, going here and there. Even the vocabulary shows the pace: one runs to the store, runs errands, dashes out, or pops over somewhere. There is a list of duties and a finite time in which to accomplish them.

No time left for you²

One of the (many) reasons my ex and I were unsuited as a couple became clear on our first trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota in the U.S. I came back feeling not physically but emotionally exhausted.

I did not realize that his goal was some kind of competitive BWCAW race to see how many miles we could hike, canoe and portage in the number of days we had. It was go-go-go-go, with never a minute’s peace.

I, on the other hand, loved being in nature, not catapulting myself through it. I wanted to spend time looking at the rocks, trees, and wildlife, identifying whose neighborhood we were visiting, so to speak, and soak up the experience of being part of it.

One day after a rare land-based lunch break, I stretched out on a sunny outcrop, gently lifting some lichen that looked like miniature lettuce. I closed my eyes and inhaled the scent of warm resin, pondering what kind of rock the lichen was colonizing, and how many millennia it had taken after the glaciers retreated to create enough soil in order to grow magnificent 100-foot-tall white pines.

Back out on the water, I was mesmerized by the icy liquid curling around my paddle. I marveled at the intensity and hue of the tannin-tinted lake under the effects of changing light and wind. I noticed how the air smelled as it purified my lungs: was rain on the way? And where was that eagle I just heard? It’s hard to navigate and paddle hell-bent-for-leather when you’re scanning the treetops for an eyrie.

The next morning before dawn, there was the usual push to strike camp and hurry up to get the canoe on the water.

Shhhhhh…I’m listening! I was counting how many repetitions the White-throated Sparrow made at the end of each call. Does the variation in number communicate a message, or is it random? Let me see if he will answer back to me if I imitate his call…will he think I’m a rival? No, probably just a weird simian.

Back on the water, I heard a soggy crunching sound well in advance of rounding a point off our starboard, to find a mostly-submerged moose munching on aquatic plants near the shore. Digging in for speed, my ex was focused on the next point, when I said, “Check out the porcupine in that big red pine at ten o’clock.”

“Where?”

“Right there,” I said, pointing. At ten o'clock.

“What the…I don’t see anything but water and a bunch of trees across the lake.” He pulled the binoculars out of his vest. Eventually, he spotted the tiny rounded brownish clump about 50 feet up in a white pine across the widest part of the lake. “Who the hell are you, Daniela Boone?” he said in disbelief, shooting me an odd sidelong glance.

No, I thought. Just someone who actually spends time living in my surroundings.

The ex still lives on twenty acres of wooded northern land, and still can’t tell the difference between a red pine and a white pine, either at a distance or up close. This boggles my mind. The same with a tamarack, fir, or spruce from a distance, or by holding their needles and cones. I think he knows Balsam fir, only because I showed him several Christmas-tree-hunts in a row how their crowns are really pointy from a distance. Also, they have flat soft needles with double white lines on the back, and the Christmas tree smell when you fold the needles? It’s a dead giveaway. But black versus white spruce? Nope. That is a conifer too far.

Go your own way³

Everyone has different temperaments and personalities, but I will not be pushed. I make a conscious effort to resist the obnoxious cultural and capitalist-generated messages that busyness equals accomplishment. I reject the chronic, futile attempts to fit in, become some image, or bow to covert or overt demands by feeling duty-bound to smash the time equivalent of 30 pounds into a 1 pound sack.

I spend thought, deliberately stripping away outside messages of Do, Must, Ought, Fast, Now, and Hurry!

If it is an external message, I ask:

· Why?

· Who is this for?

· Is this a habit?

· Does it serve me?

· From where and how far back does this expectation come?

· Do I want to do this?

· Who benefits from this, and who does not?

· What does this add to my life?

· Does this bring quality to the lives of those I care about? How?

· What happens if I do not participate?

· What is a different way to accomplish this?

· Whose agenda is this?

· Who makes money from this?

I only have so much time on the planet, and I refuse to have my life revolve around other people’s priorities and agendas. I guess it’s a type of time budget: the less I spend on things I don’t want, need, or value, the more abundance I have for what I do want, need, and value. I choose what matters and how I will live in all things over which I have control. It is raw, determinative power.

Skating⁴

I’m going to go sprinkle some Christmas joy on people, critters, and causes I care about.

I wish you a toy sack full of time and energy to spend doing what brings you joy and fulfillment, every day of the year.

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1. The 59th Street Bridge Song by Simon & Garfunkel. Audio, Live at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY - July 1970

2. No Time by The Guess Who. Originally Released 1969. All rights reserved by RCA Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment

3. Go Your Own Way from the 'Rumours' album (1977). Official audio for Fleetwood Mac

4. Skating - Vince Guaraldi Trio. A Charlie Brown Christmas continues to be America’s most popular holiday album, with a 5x platinum certification making it the best-selling Jazz album of all-time and an annual family tradition since 1965