Our moment of slow time

What makes it hard, I suppose, is that we have been living through a period of slow time, when getting to the end of the pandemic with all its restrictions seems to be dragging on and on. It’s an especially bitter pill to swallow when we have become used to fast paced living and instant gratification. We lack what the book I’m reading (The Good Ancestor) calls ‘cathedral thinking’; the ability to stretch our time horizons beyond years to generations.

Two art installations I like are the clock being built in the Texas desert by the Long Now Foundation to chime its ten bells in a unique sequence every day for 10,000 years; and John Cage’s intergenerational music composition called ‘As Slow as Possible’, which is being played on an automated organ in the German city of Halberstadt and will last 639 years, with the final note played in 2640.

That’s one way to look at our moment of slow time. Another way is to see that, in nature, periods of slow time like winter are really vital processes of rest, germination and preparation for rejuvenation. The same is true for us. Even when we think we are stuck, or doing nothing, we are seeding new ideas and building up energy for the next moment of change.

I suppose I’m trying to say that life is long and the barriers and detours still leave us plenty of time to achieve what we want to; and in the meantime, we learn patience and resilience; we learn to focus on things that really matter, like family and friends and holding onto a larger (and longer) purpose.