Ink of the Day Deep Reflection: The Violence of Slowness | On Time, Patience, and Self-Recognition 📚 #WritingCulture
When rest becomes metric, and awareness itself turns into performance
We like to imagine that slowing down is an act of love. Yet often, it hides another gesture: a disguised form of resistance against the world’s demand for constant proof of usefulness. What if the rush we resent is also the structure that gives us meaning? When we slow down, do we really care for ourselves, or do we simply seek permission to stop performing without losing worth?
This morning, anchored east of Dihamri Marine Protected Area, Socotra, 200 meters offshore in 8 meters of water, I sit with sparkling water as first warmth rises. I watch bubbles climb toward the surface, each one urgent in its ascent. Then I notice: I chose sparkling, not still. Even in slowness, I selected motion. The bubbles give me something to watch, something happening.
I catch myself preferring dynamic stillness to actual stillness. We do not rest. We negotiate with rest, demanding it prove itself through visible activity we can narrate as meaningful. The inner tempo we call natural was shaped by decades of reward and recognition. To decelerate is to meet the absence of applause.
I sit watching bubbles, telling myself I am present. But the telling reveals the performance. I construct narrative where sparkling water becomes evidence of my evolved relationship to time. What if this awareness of performing slowness is just refined performance? Now I recognize the trap, which makes me feel conscious while changing nothing about my actual relationship to worth and measurement.
The bubbles continue their mindless ascent. They do not narrate their rising. They simply dissolve, and another takes their place. Yet I cannot stop narrating, turning observation into evidence that I notice things.
To love oneself might mean surviving the discomfort of being unmeasured without turning survival into another measurement.
Real patience is raw. It exposes how quickly affection turns conditional when metrics disappear. The autumn calm is deceptive: behind its colors lies the question of whether we can ever truly slow down, or whether every attempt becomes another performance we measure ourselves by.
Reflection
Back on deck with the now-flat sparkling water, I face what the bubbles revealed: I cannot encounter rest without immediately converting it into narrative capital. The glass sits empty. The performance continues.
What if this entire contemplative practice, the morning stillness, the careful observation, the philosophical reflection, is itself the most sophisticated form of never actually resting? I write about performing slowness while performing the writing. The recognition becomes another metric. The awareness, another measurement.
Perhaps there is no escape from appropriation, only degrees of honesty about it. When I schedule time to be present, am I resting or collecting evidence of my capacity to rest? When I notice my patterns, am I developing wisdom or developing a more refined performance of wisdom? The questions multiply, but the glass remains empty, and I remain unable to simply sit with what is without making it mean something I can point to later.
A quiet gratitude to all who have tried to rest without turning it into achievement, discovering that even the recognition of this pattern becomes another thing we perform.
—#WritingCulture— by Ellis Zeitmann @ ThinkZeit
#WritingCulture #InkOfTheDay #ExistentialThinking #GoingOnBeing #PhilosophyOfLife