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When you do things in a hurry, it’s hard to do them well.
“I’m trying to work too quickly. It’s really slowing me down.” Another writer said this to me last night. She’s desperate to finish a complete draft of her novel. “Do you know what I mean?”
I had to pause, but I think I did. I got this image in my head of a person throwing things into a suitcase, something you might see in a rom com: stilletos flying, bra landing on a houseplant, a woman throwing clothes into the air like my dog digging up clumps of dirt after a poo. It’s fast and furious and urgent, and what you end up with is a pile of mismatched clothing, no socks and no toothpaste, in a bulging suitcase too full to close. Whereas if you take the five minutes to think things through, make a list, tick things off – the packing process may go more slowly, but you end up with what you need, without the drama and adrenaline and chaos.
It's hard to avoid drama and adrenaline and chaos these days. The news, the news, more news. You can take a break from it, but it’s still happening. And the effects of what is going on in all the interrelated systems (political, economic, social, ecological) show up in our lives uninvited, even when we are trying to tune them out. We know people who are losing their jobs. We are worried about our own jobs. We are facing the loss of health care, pensions, the right to protest, forests. Just to name the first few things that come to mind.
The way we respond becomes so important. It’s easy to get caught up in reacting. Stimulus; response. Stimulus; response. The newsletter says drop everything and call your senators; you drop everything and call your senators. The email says urgent response required; you respond urgently. This can feel really good. This can feel like doing something, and when the overarching sense is of powerlessness, taking action is a balm.
But, after a while, action after action after action leaves us with little more than a fleeting sense of satisfaction and a suitcase rapidly filling with mismatched clothes that we will not have the energy to muscle shut. Like my friend trying to force words into place. Sometimes, to do things well, we need to take a breath, we need to let things breathe.
You might think I’m leading to a point about the importance of self-care, but that’s not where I’m going with this. I know you know that self-care is important. I also know you know it’s hard – that making your own needs a priority is a practice, just like playing the piano is a practice: it’s something you have to actually do in order to get better at it. There are a million wellness influencers out there just chafing at the bit to tell you to put your own oxygen mask on first; I’ll leave that to them.
Instead, I want to speak to the value of rest for action. You stop so you can start. You pause so you can consider what’s next. It’s like a tennis player between points, slowing things down, taking her time walking back to the baseline so she can reflect, reorient, decide on a strategy. Those pauses are not breaks in the game. Those pauses are the game.
When we slow down, we allow ourselves the opportunity to think more clearly. When our slowing down involves turning down the voices of others – the pundits and op-ed columnists and social media choruses, we create space for our own thoughts to emerge. We can think about other things for a while, not only the painful and urgent, but also the pleasant and nourishing.
There is no rule that says in order to care about something, you much care about it all of the time. There is no need for loyalty to outrage. Outrage is fine with you taking a break. Outrage would much rather have your calm, considered, tactical self than its frantic, grasping alternative.
This break can be as long as you need it to be.
What is wonderful about the moment we are in right now is the movement that is emerging. Because all of us who are resisting – whether in conventionally activist ways or in personal, internal ways – are part of an organic and increasingly powerful movement against fascism, against 1%-ism, against injustice. And the way a movement works is: you share the load. None of us have to do all of things. We each do what we can, as we can. And, sometimes, what we can do is nothing.
I think about how our planet spins on its slanted axis, rotating around the sun. It’s why we have night and day, winter and summer. There are times for plants to grow, to stretch green arms up towards the sky, and there are times for those same plants to suck their energy back into their roots and rest. Much as the Silicon Valley bros may disdain it, the truth is that we are far more plant than machine. We can’t just keep going as long the plug stays attached to the wall. We need – and deserve – rest.
And rest is what these times need of us too. To really meet this moment, we need to do it thoughtfully, whole-heartedly, and healthily. In the words of Bayo Okomolafe and Marta Benavides, “The time is very urgent – we must slow down.” And to that, I would add, do less to do more. Do few things, things that suit you, do them as best you can, and trust that others are doing other things, things that suit them. Because they are. We are.
Postcard from Edinburgh
