Things are happening — fast. The climate is warming. The rivers are flooding. The fires are relentless, and the cost of housing has skyrocketed. Little by little, the places where we live are changing, and there seems to be only so much we as individuals can do about it. We can try to be part of the solution. Stand on the side of justice. But also pack our go-bags and be ready to run the minute the smoke or the flames or the floods come.
We live in a speeded-up world, and the pace of life cannot always be controlled. Minutes matter, more and more. Nevertheless, slowing down is essential if we are going to make it through the coming decades and, hopefully, survive beyond them to build something more stable and hospitable for all. We may have to go back to the manual way of doing certain things. We should already be flying less, driving less, walking and biking more and taking public transit. Many of the changes needed are systemic, of course, requiring the cooperation of local, national and international institutions and governmental bodies; we need to make adjustments to more than just the speed of life. But slowing down is something we can do right now, each of us, if only in stolen moments. And the benefits are extensive.
Wonder does not require traveling at the speed of light. Wonder can be found in the backyard, in a hammock, or under a flagstone, as Nina McConigley discovered with her two girls this summer (see “Slowing down the pace of childhood,”). Wonder is taking the time to be pensive, to be awed, to be caught in the thrall of the world around us. Savor the slowness of an ephemeral river, quiet for months but once again burbling in your ear (“Short-lived or shallow, it’s still water”). Indulge in the sweetness of a rare date from a farm that has cultivated unique varieties of date palms for over a century (“How the Coachella Valley became known for its dates”). There’s already too much acceleration out there. Slow is how we grow, how we learn, how we feel and how we heal.
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This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The Speed of Life.
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