The Speed Delusion: A Defense of Lingering
- Jan 19, 2023
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 19
"We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.”— Jean Baudrillard
Like most people, I was exposed to Shakespeare for the first time in high school. And like most people I found it incredibly boring.
But then, some 15 years later, something happened. I picked up the sonnets and they registered. I honestly couldn't believe the insights that he had put on the paper.
The reason why I mention this is because it's something I've noticed and it's connected to the Blue Flower. And that is that some of the best moments in life actually have kind of a delayed fuse.
Shakespeare took years for me, but the bigger point is that there is real value in "lingering." And that's become something that's increasingly difficult in our society, where waiting is by definition considered a problem to be solved.
And just to be clear there's obviously a lot of benefits to this, but at some point speed became less of a tool and more of an actual objective or value. This assumption is always that faster is better.
Byung-Chul Han writes about this in The Scent of Time, and it sounds a lot like a eulogy for slowness. He argues modern life has lost its ability to linger—to reflect, to be still, to dwell in time rather than outrun it.
“A life that lingers, that refuses to be hurried... is becoming increasingly rare.”
This gets back to something I've mentioned before. Sparkle Valley wasn't the result of some kind of a schedule or strategy. The stories came much later.
First, there was the garden. My daughter and I spent years there building imaginary worlds together. There was no goal or deadline. No audience. It was just us playing.
And I wasn't taking notes or anything. I certainly wasn't thinking about books for some kind of IP. I was simply there.
And then years later, Sparkle Valley emerged from those experiences. From all that “lingering.”
This points to one of the reasons why the Romantics were so suspicious of being obsessed with efficiency. Because there are things that can't be rushed, Things like friendship or love. Play is the very definition of not being in a rush.
Think about your deepest relationships, and how they all evolved over time through small events and seemingly inconsequential moments.
This is something we all know intuitively. The deeper experiences in life arrive organically. They can't be forced. And the Blue Flower isn’t about moving slower for its own sake. it’s simply about recognizing that meaning comes at its own schedule.
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