Giving up speed

Thursday, February 11, 2010

7:30 AM. All right, friends, now what? I’m getting a little restless and I have Robert Bruce’s manuscript to edit, but don’t want to do it, or anything else either. Now what?

Now nothing. How long do you suppose you’ll want to do nothing?

Don’t want to do nothing now! But I thought that was the game plan.

No, we said, slow down. You can function at a slower pace – and, indeed, functioning at a slower pace is precisely the point. Not functioning might help you to absorb internal changes, but it would have to be alternated with functioning to absorb externally linked changes. Merely changing the speed of all functioning will do both.

And, something we haven’t mentioned, it will also allow you to function with far less stress, rather like living at half speed. Remember “The Bar Of Shadow,” of Conrad’s.

I don’t know if that is the right title, but I know the story. The older man says, you’ll be doing well if you can keep functioning at half speed.

Yes. You have no idea how much steam-pressure you function at, so to speak. A reduction in pressure would be all to the good because you would generate less pressure-differential between yourself and the world, you’d fit in easier. You’d be less frustrated, too.

I don’t know that I want to give away that speed.

There. See? You’re attached to it. As a mark of superiority, perhaps? As a weapon in reserve? As a sign of close connection to life? Maybe a bit of each of these.

Well, I can’t say that I ever wanted to be “normal.”

No, but is speed connected to that? Or is it a misidentification?

Well, that’s an interesting thought!

Are you you, or your links, only you because of speed? In that case, what happens to you when age slows you down? Do you think Jung became less profound as he aged? He surely became slower.

Speed. I had just taken it as a given, like left-handedness, or being a Leo, or being Italian. Or American, come to that.

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