Slow Love
Urgency is killing love, but it doesn’t have to
When you step back from the dizzying human carousel you notice something: Slow is nature’s preference.
Yet humans are seemingly obsessed with increasing life’s speed. Fast food. Same day delivery. Red eye flights (god forbid we miss a meeting). On-demand dating, AI, etc. All in the name of saving time.
I wonder what people are doing with all this saved time?
Speeding up everything non-essential suggests we will have more time to do the things that make us happy. Of course that’s not what happens. The more ways we attempt to save time we more ways we find to spend time. Even this metaphor with it’s economic overtones is ridiculous.
By saying we save or spend time, we’re assume that time is a currency we can horde or exchange. Show me the bank where you keep your saved time. Please, I’ll wait.
We can’t save time, or even spend time because we are time.
The past is nothing more than memories. The future is nothing more than expectations. Memories and expectations are just thoughts. Your thoughts can only exist in the moment they are thought.
The only thing that’s real is the present.
Only this moment.
And this one.
The urgency around time is killing love. Instead of watching a connection unfold, dating is now an interview to ensure “I’m not wasting my time.” Couples are a timeline to tick of life’s milestones. Move in together, get married, have kids, buy a house, and on and on.
Rushing to a finish line that has nothing to do with real connection. Nothing to do with love.
I’m going to suggest an alternative…
Slow the fuck down.
Choose to love slowly.
Fast love appears to be the only because we’ve conflated love and sex. We think a hookup is a relationship. We think body count is evidence of connection. We believe that sliding into your DM’s is a conversation.
In Italy a group of concerned people saw the trend towards fast food and chose a different path. They chose to slow down. They chose to learn where there food was coming from and how it could be made to nurture their souls. It’s called the Slow Food movement.
Slow Food is a global, grassroots organization, founded to prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions. Slow food is an alternative to the fast life and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from and how those choices affect their world.
What if we embraced slow love? Slow love might be a global movement to preserve the very nature of human experience: love itself.
Once we lose interest in love it’s nourishing effects fade. When we miss out on the stories of our lovers we miss out on the roots of all that makes them who they are. Knowing them gives us the opportunity to see them completely. To understand them and to understand ourselves. Exploring them is a lifelong adventure.
The universe doesn’t rush.
Galaxies form over billions of years. Continents shape over millennia. Trees grow over decades. Dust was once a mountain that was once an ocean floor that was once many marine creatures.
Nothing exists but for the slow progress of time. The universe is committed to the long term. A timeless permanence.
“But time is short!” Your ego barks. “I don’t have millennia.”
Your skin bristles at the idea that you might waste an hour, a day, a week of this precious life. But what are you doing with that precious time? You’re working. You’re worrying, saving and planning for a time that may never come.
You’re working so you can have a 2 week skiing vacation and then one day retire in Florida. That’s the dream you’re speeding towards. Tripping over today so you can get to tomorrow.
You forget that you have already achieved the things you said would make you happy.
Read that again.
But what of this moment? Are you living for this moment? Are you loving for this moment?
When my beautiful wife Kristy died last year at the age of 39 it was a punch in the face. A reminder that 2 week vacations and tropical retirements are a figment of the imagination.
Slow down and savor today. There’s no guarantee of a tomorrow. Trust me on this one. Love wants you now. Not at winter break or at 65 years old.
Impatience is an argument with reality. — Rick
Rubin
The Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote that love means we are being the guardians of each others solitude. And this requests our time. Engaging conversations, supporting each others growth, and holding space for the other person requires time.
Relishing time together is the savoring. Like great (slow) food it cannot be rushed without missing out on the subtleties. Try rushing your meal at a farmyard restaurant in Slovenia’s wine country. You can’t. They won’t let you.
They know enjoying food and wine requires a commitment of your time. It’s a love affair. One not to be squandered with tomorrow’s plans.
These words are dedicated to those that choose to love slowly. You know who you are.
R
