Mental Climate Change and the Virtue of Slowing Down

Bernard, one of the lost souls from the novella 'I Went For A Walk And Never Came Back', rants in a pub about his meaningless job in the city.

“Everybody’s in such a big fucking rush these days! Everything we do is about more, more, more - instant gratification - never stopping to take just one breath! Even the way we eat! Rather than going to the trouble of visiting a restaurant, most people use an app-delivered service to bring fast food to their homes. I should know! My bullshit company makes apps. I use the apps! I eat takeaways every day! But even those who do bother to cook at home - it’s all the same kind of instant food in the end. I miss the time when there was a gentle mixing of a stew made a day ahead, like the way my mum used to patiently cook from scratch. She would wake up early to go to the market. Things took more time in those days. Before any cooking would get done, she’d do all her own slaughtering, gutting, and grinding. That’s unheard of nowadays! People would get together and chat. Mum would do the cooking, gran would lay the table, and I would wash the dishes. Now, in my tiny little apartment, a microwave and a dishwasher have replaced my family. Technology has made me lonely. They say technology is about timesaving, but it’s not - it’s about making empty time. Timesaving machines make cooking speedier and simpler than ever before, but it has also created within us a resentment for the time spent preparing food. Who has the time to grate cheese, wash and pick salad leaves or chop an onion anymore? All these things are suddenly already prepared – straight out of the bag! Impatience! The slow, laid-back meal at a restaurant, sipping at a coffee until closing time – that all belongs to another era. High rent is to blame! Food is served within strict time frames and customers are expected to then leave quickly, freeing space for the next sitting. You’ve got to shove it down your mouth fast, otherwise the business would go bust. I’m not paying for food or service, I’m paying rent! I work in an office to pay rent to live – and now I’ve got to rent to eat too?

It’s all the same everywhere I go! I just have to sit on the tube and see the faces of all the commuters. From Morden to High Barnet, the longest, blackest line on the London Underground, hundreds of thousands of daily commuters at rush hour shuffle and squeeze in carriages – tinned like sardines. Somewhere in the middle of the tube map, branching off like arteries to the heart of the city, Central, Piccadilly and Victoria lines overlap with a congested stream of office workers coagulating the entire system; pin-stripe-suited like barcodes scanned in and out of the sliding doors for production. And you know what they all do while waiting for their stop? That ridiculous English tradition of reading the newspaper! Everyone - bombarded with news and advertisements! It doesn’t matter what my job title is going to be - I’m always going to be stuck on the tube with suits and newspapers. Some people even suggested that I should go to the gym! What a joke! That’s just the same disease I’m talking about all over! Since us city workers tend to lead sedentary lives in front of computers, we are often encouraged to go to the gym. So now we’re back to where we started: everybody’s in such a big fucking rush! We’re supposed to run on a treadmill instead of taking a long, healthy walk; instead of looking at the world, we look at a wall. We believe that we will live longer by exercising, but maybe we are only extending our lives by wasting it! After all, worse than a meaningless life, is a prolonged meaningless life!

In all honesty, isn’t there something sad about expecting progress from being in such a rush? You know, like a dog expects to reach closer to its tail the faster it chases it? It’s everywhere I look: a relentless hunger for all things bigger, quicker, brighter, stronger – this is what has exhausted my mind. I’ve been patient - very patient - and I’ve never had my moment of peace. Just a quiet, slow place to be - that’s all I ask for.

Gwilym Rees. Copyright ©.

Extracts edited from the novella 'I Went For A Walk And Never Came Back'

Read the novella synopsis here.