Somethings in life should not be rushed. A good meal should not be rushed. One should linger upon the subtle complexities of an aged scotch. To rush into it, to gulp it down allows you to stake the claim that you have done THAT THING, but did it really register? You cannot hasten my Aunt Connie’s bourbon fruit cake, which apparently she has been doctoring for a few weeks. This is a true, old-fashioned Alabama fruitcake and nothing in the South moves too fast, not should it! Bees cannot be industrialized to make more honey nor will they do it on demand. Yeast bread rises at its own pace. It might be predictable and estimable, but you cannot make a proper loaf of brioche in an hour. Impossible!
Those things in life worth waiting for are worth waiting for because we have to WAIT for them. If we can get all things through the drive through, vending machine, ATM, on demand download….then everything is cheapened. The good life is meant to be slow, savored, relished, pondered and reflective. While Malcolm Gladwell can make a good argument for thin slicing, Carl Honore can offer a much better argument for Slow Living.
Don’t get me wrong. Some of the best things in life can be done QUICK! Those little quickies are super sweet exactly because they exist in a juxtaposition to their more lengthy and meandering cousins. If ALL of life were a quickie we’d eventually reduce all of human existence into factorials of an hour. Pleasure is a better master than time. To be permitted all the time necessary to do something properly is far more valuable than putting a check mark in a To Do List box. Just because we live in an industrialized habitat does not mean our minds nor our hearts must function with the precision of an assembly line.
Life…an authentic life… cannot be manufactured or popped out of a mold. Each one is different, as variable as heart beats or finger prints. We are not mass produced and our emotions cannot be fabricated to specifications. There are no industry standards as to how we should feel or respond. And THAT is the spice of this life. How willing are we to leave go, not attempt to control or manipulate? Can we allow ourselves to float, trusting that the river will carry us to the exact place we need to end up. Granted, the final destination may not look like the travel brochure of the trip we got sold, but the river has its own intent. You cannot rush the river. And therefore, lean back, dangle your legs in the lazy current, listen to the birds and the wind and ENJOY!