The art of slowing down

The best moments in life allow us to slow down.

Yet the world keeps speeding up.

And I’m not sure we talk enough about the human cost.

We celebrate anything that allows us to do things faster.

Rarely do we ask if faster is actually better – especially when it comes to creating and sharing something meaningful.

Take this image as an example. With AI, I could have churned it out within seconds.

Instead, I spent an entire morning capturing it.

And I would do it all over again.

Because those hours were the whole point of me being there.

On the morning I shot this photo, on a small island in Italy years ago, I experienced a whole range of emotions.

I remember feeling sad and lonely as I was listening to Mahler’s fifth symphony on my way to the island; the first passenger on the ferry from Venice at 4 AM, my mind wandering back to an earlier visit with someone I once loved.

When I arrived at the village, I looked up at the stars before sunrise, with sadness giving way to awe and wonder. It was as if time were expanding, much like the universe above me.

As dawn approached and the stars faded gently, I felt a spark of joy and quiet elation when the sun finally hit the rooftops of the houses.

In that moment, I realized something that was essential for me at that stage of my life:

I was learning how to appreciate the beauty of the world, even when I was alone.

I was learning to love from within, even when there was no one to receive it but me.

It was a slow experience, rich in meaning.

I could have tried to capture all of this in seconds with the latest version of ChatGPT, prompting it for a quick result to save time.

Instead, I spent hours crafting this post, to the melancholic tones of Mahler’s fifth symphony, to relive those moments in that village.

To feel what I felt then.

To understand what it all meant to me in the broader arc of my life.

And to impart that meaning to you, unrushed, perhaps allowing you to enjoy a brief moment of pause and reflection as well.

Not every aspect of life is meant to be fast and efficient – especially not the act of experiencing and expressing what’s most meaningful to us.

We can’t feel words we automate.

We can’t remember what rushes past.

And we can’t connect without our humanity.

Art becomes more meaningful when we give it time to emerge.

Memories deepen when we linger long enough to create them.

And connections grow stronger when we show up fully for each other, with our time and attention.

To slow down – and to embrace the often arduous process of creating and sharing something we care about – is to give ourselves space to be present, to process, to feel, and, really, to love.

Faster is not always better. On the contrary.

Slow is, in many ways, beautiful.

It’s what gives life meaning.

It’s what allows us to be human, not machines.

And that’s something worth holding onto dearly.