Slow, Quiet

Living a slower, quieter life in a world of more, bigger, best can feel lonely. But you’re not alone in wanting to do less, and to do that less more quietly, more intently, more aware.

Every time I do less, I find more of me. Every time I stay instead of go I meet some unknown part. Every time I wait instead of distracting myself away I experience some small moment, some infinitesimally small miracle, some thing I’d never see when rushing, a quiet I’d never otherwise hear over the sound of my own forced breath. 

It’s never been easier to feel more alive, and it’s not through the things the movies tell us, or the things the adverts sell us. What brings us alive is the same as it always has been throughout time—being a warm body in a cool breeze, a witness to what is truly wild, sunrise and night fall, stars fixed and falling, leaves twisting, seed heads flying, petals dropping, a cat asleep in the sun.

We feel alive when we’re in the presence of other living things. But to feel their aliveness, and our own, we need to be moving at human pace, a humane pace.

Technology urges us on, beyond our limits. Working on in our ergonomic seats, working past dark under foreign light, chasing carrots, avoiding sticks, keeping up, keeping up, keeping up.



Wanting to slow down is a sane response to an overpaced world. Living at a humane pace can seem slow at first. It’s like getting off a carousel and feeling wobbly-legged, disoriented, and little disappointed that you now have to move yourself around in order to see things. 

It takes a while to catch up with yourself. When we finally stop moving, as we all have recently, we can feel agitated, restless. All the energy we used to propel ourselves forward is still there, and now needs somewhere to go. It’s been channelled into activities - baking, cleaning, gardening, sorting out the house and then eventually the energy wears itself out. Then what?

Perhaps feelings of boredom, listlessness, apathy. We can’t propel ourselves in our usual ways, and we don’t yet know how to move at this new, slower (human) pace. We’re in-between. 

We’re in between and without our usual activities, devices and distractions. It’s uncomfortable. We’ve slowed down and we’re catching up with ourselves. That might feel nice, or it might feel scary. Uh-oh, look what's coming….

Here comes the self we thought we’d left behind. Here come the memories we’ve worked so hard to forget. Here come the fears we’ve been outrunning all our life. 

We think, this is no way to live. 
Running from ourselves is no way to live. 

We think, this is torture. 
Torture is the need to constantly keep running. 

We think, I can’t wait for this to be over.
If we really want it over, lets stay with ourselves just a little longer and and move beyond this point.

I know it’s hard. I’ve spent most of my life running from thoughts and feelings. We don’t want to feel the hard things. Who does? But we don’t have to do it alone. We are all having same-same-but-different experiences right now. We can all do this with each other. 

We can tell someone about what’s feeling hard. We can ask someone to listen as we recount the memory that keeps haunting us. We can have someone stay with us on the phone while we cry. They don’t need to fix it, and we don’t need them to. All we need is someone to listen, to help the stuck things to move. If we let those things move through us, we no longer have to keep moving to outrun them. 

We can finally stop. We can relax. We can move slower. We can breathe more gently. We can hear and see the world. We can choose a natural pace that feels good for us, instead of adopting a pace that feels necessary. 

I'm slowing down. If you want to too, you're not alone.