Going Slow

Catherine proposes that we don’t have to be in lockstep with the speed of the modern world. We can question the push to go continually faster into greater complication amidst an expanding deluge of bits of information. Catherine suggests that we choose a human-scale life, living as a misfit who goes slower in a frenzied world.

Transcript

Welcome to In the Deep.

I'm your host,

Katherine Ingram.

The following is from a Zoom session broadcast from Australia on June 5th,

2021.

It's called Going Slow.

This is from EF Schumacher.

Any fool can make things complicated.

It takes a genius to make them simple.

Schumacher was an economist.

He died in 1977.

He was German by birth,

But spent quite a lot of time in the UK.

His economics focused on human scale technologies,

Human scale ways of life.

He's famous for his book,

Small is Beautiful.

I forgot the subtitle,

But it was something like economics for people as if they mattered or something like that.

But Small is Beautiful is the title.

I was thinking about this today,

Thinking about Schumacher because my neighbors told me that there was a lot of trouble with the internet because they're installing 5G in our area.

Leaving aside whatever stories or concerns people might have about 5G,

I was thinking it's just going to be about going faster,

As if we weren't going fast enough,

As if we needed to be going a lot faster.

Because just what we need is more complication,

More expectation of speed.

But everybody seems to love it.

The world is in this shared hallucination like a trance about speed,

More speed,

Faster and faster and faster.

I was remembering,

I know it sounds like I'm beginning to be 100 or something,

But remembering growing up when the phone dial was one of those circular things on a pad with numbers.

So if you had a number with a lot of nines and eights and zeros in it,

It took a while to just call someone on the phone.

But you didn't notice that.

You didn't think about it.

It didn't seem a hardship at all.

Things were simpler,

Actually.

Life was easier in many ways.

And I propose,

As I do every time,

We don't have to be in lockstep with the speed of the modern world.

We don't have to.

I really think it's unhealthy.

I see it everywhere.

I see it in the values.

I see it in people's stress,

In their various forms of illness,

Mental and physical illness.

But it takes a strong intention to go at your own pace,

At your own human scale pace,

And to live a human scale life.

One has to make a choice.

And in a way,

You make it every day.

You need to make it every day.

Because the pressure about the speed and the complication is ubiquitous.

It's everywhere.

But no matter how many people buy into it,

It doesn't make it a good way to go,

A good way to live,

Just because everyone else is doing it.

And this applies to many,

Many things.

We who love the Dharma,

We really are misfits.

I've said it many times.

But we're in good company with other wonderful misfits of the world in our own time,

And also in history.

And that's where you can find your confidence.

Be proud to be a misfit in this world.

Be proud to not fit in,

In a constant swirl of complication and more and speed and pressure and the constant exaltation of somebodiness that drives a lot of that.

Keeping up with fear of missing out.

I was in Victoria recently,

Here in Australia.

I was there because we were going to be having a retreat,

Which we've been planning for months.

But Victoria had some cases break out.

And even though they hadn't been locked down for many,

Many,

Many months,

It happened that those cases broke out while I was there and we had to cancel the retreat.

And I had to come home to my state,

Which was fortunately open still,

One of the only,

I think the only state that had not closed its borders to Victoria.

So I got back and I'm required to be in 14 days isolation because of having been in Victoria.

But I said to Ona Kaul the other day,

I'm so used to retreat and so kind of happy to just be home.

You know,

I joked I could do this standing on my head.

Not that I can't,

I can't stand on my head.

Never could.

But the point being that this is not a hardship for me.

I like going slow.

I like quiet.

I love peace.

There are some inconveniences about it,

But not worth mentioning really.

So that's another point I would make about this.

Maybe it's an acquired taste to put on the brakes a bit in one's life and go slower.

Stare at the sky more.

Watch the birds or watch a leaf fluttering on a tree.

Do nothing.

Don't fill up your time.

Maybe it's an acquired taste,

But I propose and I've seen it a lot.

I've especially seen the extraordinary transformations that happen to people in retreat whereby they get a lot happier,

A lot more calm,

A lot more clear.

Going slow and not adding on and not complicating.

Okay.

That's what I had to say.

I propose our new 5G coming to the neighborhood.

A bit wasted on me because I was fine with 4G.

Hi,

Dear.

Nice to see you.

Me too.

I've been gone for two months.

Yes.

Gone from this community on May 1st,

I had to play a concert.

Just reflecting on your experience.

I mean,

There's so much in the 5G.

I'm a 3G person.

I definitely feel a sense of nostalgia for an easier,

Less complicated life.

And nothing has brought that home to me more than this last period of time where I've really grown to appreciate the huge ME project that I was working on before the whole pandemic set in,

Which was the career being on the road at least four months a year.

And many things,

You know,

Of the many things that it taught me,

One is that by living in so many hotel rooms with just a suitcase,

I learned that I need very,

Very little to be happy.

And it's very easy to give up on the ME project and just do the BE project,

Just being.

I like that.

And there are two things.

Carly Simon did this incredible interview and she was asked,

You know,

How have you,

You know,

You've had this struggle with yourself and all over all these years and how have you managed?

And she said,

She had this moment when she looked around herself and she saw everyone worried about their image,

What color dress,

What kind of shoes,

Too much jewelry or not enough jewelry.

Should I wear that watch or this watch?

The whole image,

The whole things that were destroying her confidence,

Her sense of self,

Participating in all of that.

And she said,

You know,

I realized that everyone was far too obsessed with their insecurities,

Their image,

Their performance,

What people think of them to spend any calorie of thought about me.

So that's when I realized I can just jettison the whole thing and just be myself.

Because,

You know,

In the end that's all that's left.

Yes.

And combining with your other thoughts,

You said,

You know,

You were reflecting on this sort of scorekeeping.

You know,

People went to this ashram,

They studied with this guru,

They did this and read these books and did all these things in this wonderful project of making themselves the most holy of the holies.

And you said that you jettisoned that whole project and just concentrated on the living,

The feeling of just being alive.

Yeah.

And I thank you for that comment.

And yeah,

I think that's what I've got to say today.

I'll just chill out here and enjoy all the rest of you.

Well I second everything you said.

Yes,

Absolutely.

It is an incredible moment of liberation to realize that you don't have to worry about what other people are thinking about you because they're kind of not thinking about you.

I mean,

Maybe sometimes now and again,

And very briefly,

But we live under this sort of scary oppression about how we're being perceived.

And a lot of that comes from,

In a way,

A lack of self-acceptance because when there is self-acceptance,

When you're okay with you and you're not trying to prove anything,

You don't mind if someone thinks you're not proving anything because you're not trying to prove anything.

A lot of what you said,

What I've written about the me project,

When the me project is dropped,

A whole lot of things clunk away with it.

And then you do find yourself just living a simple life.

Chong Su,

The great Taoist philosopher,

Has a wonderful poem,

I guess,

Or teaching called When Life Was Full,

They Made No History.

I can't remember all of the stanzas or anything,

But just how people lived gently.

They came and went with the seasons.

The rulers were just sort of the highest branches on the tree.

It was like everything was sort of this organic beingness.

And they made no history.

They weren't trying to make history.

They weren't trying to leave their mark.

And there are,

Of course,

Cultures whose value is to leave no trace.

That is the opposite to what we labor under,

Where everyone is trying to leave their mark and have their face show on all of their social media and have their moments of life recorded.

To think that you might,

The difference in a value whereby your whole intention is to walk lightly,

Is to not leave a trace,

To leave this world as you found it without taking from it.

Now,

We as humans,

We do cost the world quite a bit.

But to have at least some leaning into thinking about not going overboard with that.

And a lot of what happens with people who are very dedicated to the Some Body Project is they have to keep gulping resources in different ways.

The Some Body Project is expensive to the earth.

So these are all the reflections that come in this kind of quiet.

I love what you said too about just that this phase has given that gift for a lot of people.

Now,

Not everyone got the lesson.

A lot of people are just kicking and screaming all the way through because they want to get back to all the big racing around and complication and more and more and more that they missed.

But there are others who had a real wake up and miss.

When we identify through those things,

Through the trip that we want to take to Tahiti,

When we identify through our consumption of the world,

We're just taking part in the culture.

For me,

It's an image of a person in a room,

Sitting in an overstuffed chair,

Looking at this huge flat screen TV.

And I see that image and I think who's in control?

What's in control here?

What are we giving up to this new altar?

I just simply want to disconnect.

I just want to cut the cable and I want to feel just deeply what's inside.

And there's so much to discover there that has been muted.

I push the mute button when I'm turning up the volume of a television,

For instance.

I'm turning up the volume of something,

But I'm muting myself.

And I want to change that relationship and I want to mute those things and turn up the volume in myself.

Beautiful.

Yeah.

Beautiful.

Well said.

Living in your senses.

I mean,

This is a short run.

And I said recently,

They've said it on one of these calls,

Your only real wealth,

Your actual wealth is your attention.

It's like,

How is your attention being used?

Is it being used for love?

Is it being used for aliveness?

Is it being used for connection with those you love?

Appreciation.

How's it being used?

Gratitude.

Or is it being used and sold to media companies?

It's an interesting way to,

Because I've talked about this before,

That our attention now is actually being sold.

That's what's being sold on these various phones,

Is your attention.

There's all these tricks to keep your attention on a certain screen which will have advertising and flashed in however much.

So to really begin to see,

Yeah,

That is a form of wealth and how am I going to use my own wealth,

My own attention?

Really see it that way.

I like your image of who's in control of who.

You're holding the remote control,

But are you actually in control?

So to really hit the mute.

I've been really thinking a lot about,

And I should just say that ironically too,

I keep dropping in and out technologies.

Not my friend this evening here in RAM in Victoria.

But I keep thinking about the fragility.

I guess your whole life can be clicked and switched and locked down.

I think we're one of the highest locked down places in the world,

Perhaps not the,

But amongst the top locked down places.

So our whole lives can be changed in a click.

I know we know that intellectually,

Clever,

We get that because we've lived through it here in this state.

But it's just amplified the need for being resourceful and to going within because we really don't know how long this lockdown is going to go for.

There's so many unknowns.

People are feeling vulnerable financially,

Mental health,

Lots and lots of issues.

So we just keep revisiting it.

And so I just keep coming back to the thing about,

Like you said,

Some of us haven't got the gift.

And sometimes it's pretty challenging when people's livelihoods and all those other issues are happening around.

But I just noticed it's that whole thing about it's very fragile and we've really only got the ability to take care of ourselves.

And I know once again,

I know that's obvious,

But it is just the message that I keep coming back to,

Coming back to,

Coming back to and reminded of it again this week with the lockdown being extended and just thinking,

Yeah,

OK,

That's all I can do is just be.

Yeah.

And it's a lot about letting go.

You know,

It's a lot about one has to let go of how you would prefer it to be.

It's not that we aren't allowed our preferences.

We can't help but have them.

But when one sees that it's not going to go your way and you're not going to get your preference,

Then the next best move is letting go.

And that's that's where the resilience is.

I often say that's where the resilience is,

Is saying,

OK,

Letting go.

So,

Yeah,

What I'm thinking of is that paradox of being connected,

Because here we are dependent on the modern technology to do something that we do feel deeply in our heart is valuable.

And certainly this last year,

It's been a way of,

I mean,

A big extended family and it's been our way of feeling connected through,

Especially the early days where there was,

You know,

Huge loss configured and how to how are we going?

So I have that sense of maybe,

Yeah,

Maybe that word interwovenness between the self and the social that it's almost like a language.

We need to be bilingual.

We need to be able to use it skillfully.

So I think everything you're drawing attention to about not being overwhelmed by it or what Matthew was saying about being able to mute things.

I certainly they are go to's for me.

But again,

Because of being in an extended family with a lot of young people,

Younger generation,

This is,

You know,

It's a mode and a way of being.

And I my sense is that part of their skill is that figuring out how to navigate that.

So I look I do look to the younger generation to learn in relation to particularly about technology,

Let's say,

Since we've been speaking about technology.

I mean,

That opening quote by Schumacher,

You know,

It takes genius to well,

I'm no genius.

Maybe I tend to complicate things.

But I do see that there are varied ways of being needing to be and sometimes we need to be in the register of connectivity and meeting expectations from others when we're involved in shared ventures,

For example.

Yes.

Well,

It's things that will cross your mind.

Well,

I mean,

It's good to understand that one is in command of how you're using your attention and your time.

You know,

So of course,

We take advantage of these technologies to hang out together like this to have a Dharma sharing to feel community in a circumstance where we have very little option otherwise.

But how much is enough of that,

You know,

We would not would not suggest that we would be doing this for hours a day.

And and so the whole idea of unplugging has to do with turning the attention away from this constant ingesting of mediated information.

Now you talk you talked about the young people.

I know that this is the language they've grown up in.

I'm not convinced it's healthy.

I'm sorry to say,

Because that's how all the young people are living these days.

But I don't sense that it's so healthy,

With some great exceptions,

Not that all they're all the kids are crazy or anything.

But I do see a lot of I read that there's a tremendous amount of anxiety and depression among young people,

In ways that I don't remember hearing when not when we were young.

I don't remember that,

That sort of blanket wave of depression.

In those days,

It's not that we didn't have troubles,

But and ironically,

In a lot of places where there's life is much more poor economically,

They don't have high rates of depression.

It's interesting.

These are these are all ways to challenge our assumptions and to really step out of this rushing flood.

You know,

I'll notice sometimes because I do make a practice of having a lot of downtime,

I like to have a lot of space around things.

And sometimes I'll notice,

Oh,

Shouldn't I be doing this or that?

Shouldn't I be more productive?

And I'll really take myself in hand,

I'll put myself in check and say,

Wait a minute,

Production for what?

For what?

Now,

Obviously,

One keeps up with one's responsibilities as best we can.

But in terms of producing anything,

I challenge it a lot.

You know,

I don't tend to ask people,

What have you been doing?

I say,

How are you faring?

Yes,

I say,

Have you been?

Yeah.

If I could just have a follow up here.

Yes.

When I was young,

Still living with my parents,

My father would come into my room.

And he would ask me,

So what's your plan?

What's your plan?

Because if you don't plan anything,

Nothing will happen.

And to this day,

When I hear the words,

So what's your plan?

I don't have to tell you my reaction.

But I would I would love if you could reflect a little bit on this notion that we have to have a plan or that there is this question of a need to do something.

What is your plan?

I just love to hear you respond to that.

Yeah,

Well,

Plans have their place,

Given that we do have to make arrangements for certain modes of operation.

And sometimes that has to do with fulfilling responsibilities,

Right?

We have to work,

Most of us,

To make money and it requires some planning.

But I think that one can have a very light relationship to plans,

Knowing that they can change on a dime.

And that also in the light relationship that your identity and your hopes and dreams are not all rolled up in some plan.

Right.

Aside from the knowing that it might not come to be,

But also de-linking your own psychological attachment to that's going to be a lot more fun.

How many times have we all experienced?

We go through some grand plan,

You know,

It's a thousand different details that we organize and we nail down perfectly and we do all the research,

We get on the plane and we,

You know,

And the actual event turns out to be not that great.

Like,

You can't wait to get home.

Many times in our lives,

Right?

Many times the plans.

So I really,

Of course,

Recommend enjoying how the day is rolling out.

And if you don't have to have a plan and you certainly don't have to have a plan,

If there's nothing pressing and you have no responsibility to fulfill,

It's incredibly,

It's also maybe an acquired taste.

It's incredibly delightful to let the winds of your own spirit move you.

Like if you feel like lolling about watching a movie in bed,

Or you feel like going for a walk,

Or you feel like getting up in the middle of the night and doing some creative thing that you just had an inspiration for,

Or whatever it is that you're really spontaneously living according to your own nature.

And that gets more and more habitual.

So I encourage people to on their days off,

So called,

To not stuff those days with lots of things to be doing.

So often people will spend their so called free time,

Not free at all,

Just racing from one entertainment to the next because,

You know,

They want to get their money's worth out of the weekend or whatever days they have off.

And for me,

The idea of being able to just move to my own internal inspiration through the day.

And as I said,

I like to go slow.

Such luxury.

It is.

We're such fortunate beings that we can have this time and that our very thoughts aren't concentrated on survival.

Yes,

We are super fortunate in this world and on this planet for its history,

You know,

To think about how many people had to live,

Having to hunt or pick the food to eat that day for centuries.

And even until not that long ago,

You really weren't able to store food for great lengths of time.

So,

You know,

It was always a big issue and people were poor.

People struggled just for survival.

So,

Yes,

We in a way have the opposite end of the scale of the problem.

We have too many options and too many things to chase about and we get seduced.

And especially,

As I said at the outset,

Because we've got a whole culture a world culture now that is telling us that's what you want.

You want more stuff.

You want to go faster.

You want it to be more complicated.

And even people who,

You know,

Who like ourselves who knew a different world,

You know,

We can get seduced by it as well a bit.

But I do take your point when you said before that you feel nostalgia.

And I definitely understand that nostalgia for a slower time.

One can carve that out in your own life.

Unapologetically too.

I mean,

I think it's very powerful,

A very powerful offering to be that for other people to be an example of going slow.

I think that it's a gift for other people to see.

Catherine,

I feel like you've,

I've heard you speak about finding a rhythm.

Can you talk a bit more about finding a rhythm because it just seems like a good measure to find your rhythm so that you're not constantly getting sucked to all the corners of the distraction.

Well,

Part of finding your rhythm is tuning really deeply tuning into your nervous system to actually notice when you're starting to feel frazzled,

You're starting to feel nervous as opposed to feeling at ease,

Not slothful.

You know,

That's also a kind of feeling off if you're feeling just really slothful and heavy,

But rather a kind of light ease in your being.

And that becomes your barometer.

And you get,

I think,

Better and better at noticing that more quickly when it starts to go off.

Like when you're going too fast,

There's too many balls in the air,

Or something is agitating,

Some situation is agitating.

You because you accustomed yourself to a sort of simpler way inside of your own self,

A quieter place in yourself that in which you exist.

It's very glaring when you're suddenly feeling thrown off base,

And agitated and nervous.

So you really,

Really start to,

To move with that.

Now,

That doesn't mean that you're always going slow.

But sometimes we enjoy periods or phases or a day here or there,

Where you've got a lot of things you're up to,

And they're all fun,

Or they're all at least interesting,

Or they're,

Or they're important in various ways,

And you flow through them.

I'm not saying that this way of being is always just very slow down.

But to really find your own rhythm based on your own nervous system.

I once lived with someone who,

He was going so fast.

I mean,

He was just zooming all the time.

And I could not keep up with him.

My nervous system couldn't just simply couldn't do it physically.

But I could see that for him,

It was his pace.

And it wasn't taxing for him.

It was,

It was just his pace.

Some people are made differently in that way and can really handle a lot of motion and balls in the air and details and just kind of from one thing to the next into the night.

But I think it's good to be honest about what your rhythm is.

Another piece of this is to not be swayed that you should be going at a faster pace or a slower pace if your pace is what it is.

So you go at your own pace.

Hello,

Catherine.

Nice to see you.

We are in the mountains in Bavaria close to the border of Austria.

And it's very beautiful.

It's just being all day in nature and hiking a lot and sitting on the terrace and looking in the mountains for hours and reading and cooking a little bit.

That's sleeping.

That's about it.

You both have quite a glow actually.

It's very beautiful.

Just you have to do nothing and it's spiritual,

Right?

Like living just like that.

Yes,

Yes,

Exactly.

You just immerse.

That's all your job is to immerse.

And sometimes in the Corona times,

We said,

Well,

We are not suffering so much because it didn't change so much for us.

Of course,

Some work we can't do.

But before I went to my atelier and now I go to my atelier,

It's the same and we are very introverted.

It's the same now than before.

So it's not so much changing for us.

And of course,

I have different ego projects running as well.

But it changes more and more.

It's more that I start looking what happens.

I'm not trying to force everything and I just look what happens.

I look what's going to paint.

This is a lot different.

Wow.

Yes,

That's great.

Yeah.

It's like it's moving through you instead of by you.

It's not you doing it.

It's something moving through.

Yeah,

Yes.

This was a big question I had in the last times that I was wondering.

There's so much talking and thinking about the ego and to overcome this ego.

And then things go on by as before,

Because the ego was an illusion.

So it just goes on.

This is the one thing.

But the other thing is still it changes.

Because the ego is an illusion.

But at the same time,

It leads you to another way of living,

To force things,

To want to have things.

And it's kind of a paradox,

I think that the ego is an illusion.

But still,

This illusion brings you to another way of living.

That's what I feel.

Another way to language this is to think of it in terms of the personal needs.

And because we have to honor the personal needs.

And sometimes the personal needs do have to do with having a creative impulse and wanting that creative impulse to be acknowledged and enjoyed by others.

I don't call that an ego need.

Actually,

I call that just a personal,

It's just part of the personal life.

Now,

If one gets really stuck in the personal,

And can't move to a more transpersonal view,

Then you're in trouble.

Because on the personal level,

You lose everything.

Like you just,

Everything gets either taken from you or you leave it by death.

Right?

That's how it goes.

So if you're only on the personal level,

It's going to be a sad story.

But we have to honor it while we're here.

Right?

We have to honor the personal needs.

And just not get stuck in them.

And to have a larger view that is beyond the personal only.

That sees and knows,

Okay,

I'm doing the dance here.

We're enjoying this.

We have likes and dislikes.

We have preferences.

All of that I see as very human,

Very much allowed.

And more light then,

More dance,

Not so fast.

The same with thinking.

It's the same a little bit.

Thinking is important,

But when you just use it,

And then you let it go again.

It's not using,

The thinking is using you.

That's it.

Yes,

Exactly.

Right.

Yeah.

You're the master of your mind rather than the mind is the master of you.

And yes,

That's exactly.

So again,

With the personal,

You know,

In the personal realm,

Let's say someone is mean to you,

Or someone betrays you.

It hurts on the personal level.

And that's a fair feeling as a human.

It hurts.

But again,

To just be stuck there,

And be going over and over and over the affront or the injury is going to just make you feel worse and worse and worse.

So again,

Sometimes the ego does get hurt,

The so-called ego,

The personal sense of self,

The personal attachment to certain ways that you like.

I see all of that as very,

Very human to be expected,

Allowed.

Sometimes my feelings get hurt by people's behavior.

You know,

Personally,

I get personally hurt.

But how much time do I spend with that?

As little as possible.

I just try to move my attention into understanding or to considering the hurt that these people have endured.

You know,

I try to have some kind of softening in my own way of understanding it,

But still,

And also,

In the personal realm,

It's also fair to avoid certain people and certain circumstances,

Because they're just too dangerous for you.

Then again,

You know,

Not to feel that you have to overcome things with some kind of spiritual idea.

And not let come all the catastrophes of the world over TV coming in your life.

Yes,

Yes,

Indeed.

Also,

Part of the unplugging.

Poisoning.

Yeah,

That's unplugging again,

Kind of poisoning your life all the time.

That's right.

Yeah,

Yes,

Absolutely.

To really understand that what you're ingesting with your attention is having effects.

So to really,

To really try to make that as healthy and as as beautiful as you can.

You're part of this organic flow called life.

You're here for a while.

You have all these adventures and all these loves and all these ideas and all these connections and conversations and moments of silence and connected to people who you may not even know their names.

All these these extraordinary moments that make up a life and knowing as you're living them,

The beauty and the privilege of it.

Sometimes one sees a life of someone who has died,

You see the life as a whole piece,

And you understand the meaning of that life in hindsight,

The meaning of it in your own heart,

But also perhaps for that person as well.

That there are these apparently these rare flowers that bloom in deserts,

You know,

Once in 100 years or something.

We're much more rare than that,

Far more rare.

We're total one-offs in eternity,

Actually.

In eternity,

We're one-off,

We're rare.

Each of us are very rare flower that has its own fragrance and its own look and its own peculiarity.

And just to be that,

You know,

Just to just to be that your authentic self is more than enough.

It's often very tender for me to witness when I sense people feel some kind of self-diminishment.

And often I'm seeing them as this unique creature blooming in the in the universe,

Right?

And then that's it.

That's all that it needs to be.

It doesn't have to be changed in any way.

Wonderful.

So nice to see you both.

How nice.

Bavaria.

It sounds exotic.