Slow Down, You Move Too Fast

My cell phone rang, surprising me. These days most of my phone contacts are texts, announced by a ding.  My phone is set to Silence Unknown Callers, discouraging politicians, as well as charities like The Foundation for Healthy Livers. They may be worthy causes, but I just don’t want to experience telephone guilt administered by strangers. There is enough guilt out there without inviting it in.

The caller was a pal. “I’ve got a quick question,” he said. It follows he needed a “quick answer.” Did he need a quick answer because his dance card was chock-a-block with important meetings, his time being important, not to be squandered? Or had a member of his golf foursome just done a face plant on the first tee and he couldn’t remember the proper sequence for CPR (push on chest first or blow into mouth first)?  

Maybe he wanted to be quick about things because he thought my time was valuable? Not true. I am a PIP (Previously Important Person), unemployed since 2008, active in sorting my socks or cleaning the lint filter in the clothes dryer. My time is a cheap commodity, available at a deep discount.

When did “quick” become the gold standard for communication? I remember fondly sitting back in my desk chair, propping up my Weejuns and saying, “Tell them I’ll call them back later.” Or, by way of excuse for a tardy return call, explain “I was on the road in Pensacola and couldn’t get to a pay phone.” (For Gen X and Millennials, a “pay phone” is like The TARDIS in Dr. Who.)

“Quick” is over-rated. Last week our AC repairman and my doctor both said they would “take a quick look at the problem.” “Let me make a careful examination” would have been more reassuring. The fourteen-year-old boy who lurks inside my head is all about “quick.” If I let him take charge, I can do and say exceptionally dumb things quickly, things I painfully remember in bed at 2 AM, thirty years later. I need to tell the fourteen-year-old to put a lid on it and sit down.

I am not quick, because I am burdened with nearly four-score years of data. It is scattered about in my head like parts from an explosion at an Ikea store. A caller must cool his heels while I organize a response to his question. Rummaging through drawers in my prefrontal cortex, I find nouns like doohickey and thingamajig. I find “Whan that April with his showres soote the droughte of March hath perced to the roote” and the words to Stardust (OK, the refrain). What I can never find is the name of the guy I met three minutes ago on the elevator.

Somewhere along the line, somebody in charge stepped on the accelerator and did not let off. I am driving a two-tone 1960 Nash Metropolitan (aqua and white) while the rest of the world blows by me in a Tesla. My Life’s Editor and I decided to watch Yellowstone to see what the fuss was about. Being “All Creatures Great and Small” type folks, we were the last on our block to watch Kevin Costner’s turn as a Montana cattle mogul. Within minutes of the opening titles a couple were coupling in a vestibule, knocking side tables about, he with all the savior faire of a vengeful jack-hammer operator. Even mating has sped up. There were no introductions, no first date, no flowers. (Editor’s note: Little Joe or Hoss would have taken their spurs off.)

The digital New York Times gives notice of how long it takes to read an article. The NYT thinks your time is valuable, should be cut into manageable chunks like a bar of butter.

Skull of Ancient ‘Sea Monster’ With Dagger-Like Teeth Discovered in England

3 MIN READ

This means the average Times reader, not moving his lips, should be able to knock it off in three minutes. Say you had ten minutes to catch the plane to Atlanta, dallied for three minutes on the ancient sea monster and spotted an article you craved to read, “The Seven Most Stylish People of 2023.” It goes for 8 MIN! You hurriedly scan for a seven-minute article but waste a minute doing so. What to do? Little wonder angst is a growth market.

My Editor’s great-grandparents were missionaries in Guayaquil, Ecuador for most of the first half of the 20^th century. They preached the Protestant flavor of Christianity under the auspices of the Gospel Missionary Union of Kansas City, Missouri. Nothing in their life was “quick.” Letters and packages arrived by steamers that came through the Panama Canal and made their way leisurely down the South American coastline. There was no “Breaking News at Six” in Guayaquil in 1925. This is more my style.

I intend to continue taking my time in answering questions. I will not order ahead to avoid lines. If an article in my NPR news app is nine hours old, I will not dismiss it in favor of reading an article an hour out of the oven. I’ll read a ten-minute piece in the Times and take fifteen minutes. Maybe I’ll hum:

Slow down, you move too fast
You got to make the morning last
Just kicking down the cobblestones
Looking for fun and feeling groovy
Ba da-da da-da da-da, feeling groovy

       59^th Street Bridge Song, Simon and Garfunkel

Merry Christmas,

The Casual Observer

PS. Suggested reading for 2024: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt