Faster But Not Freer- March 12

Do you ever catch yourself packing your days fuller and fuller, constantly adding new activities to the mix? In today’s 5 Minutes in Nature, Liz reflects on the remarkable technology that helps us complete tasks faster than ever before. Yet she notices something surprising: instead of creating more space for rest and leisure, this efficiency often tempts us to squeeze even more into our schedules.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me Liz Scott out and about at night time. It's actually quite unusual because I can actually see some stars above me and we've had so much cloud recently it's been impossible to see any stars in the night time and I am wandering through the village just having a little bit of a stroll before I head back home. Today I wanted to reflect on slowing down. It's a theme that recurs so much for me in my life, Slowing down and it came to me recently. I went to an authors group, It was a local authors group, They meet or we meet regularly just to give each other a bit of moral support. Most of us are self-published authors and we are always supporting each other with questions and queries and ideas for marketing and all of that kind of thing. One of the people there is a person that records audiobooks, He uses his voice to record audiobooks and I think he gets paid for it and he became really excited by some artificial intelligence, A program he'd just bought, Which meant that he could replicate his voice through artificial intelligence and rather than sit down and read a book he could just put the script into this particular program and his voice would be replicated and read it out. So he wasn't doing that himself, It was being generated through the artificial intelligence and he was delighted and he said you know what, I can do four times as much work as I used to be able to do, All thanks to this program that replicates my voice and as I listened to him my heart sank. I was thinking that's not your voice, You're not reading the book. If I'm listening to the book there isn't an actual person reading the book and interpreting the book, I'm listening to an artificially generated voice and it just got me reflecting on the way the world continually speeds up. And what I notice is that even though things seem to get quicker or supposedly simpler, Rather than giving ourselves more time and space, It seems that as we find more time-efficient ways to do things, We just do more things and so in a sense it doesn't slow us down at all, It just speeds our lives up. And one of the things I've been reflecting on recently is the walk, The pilgrimage walk I engaged with last year. I'm actually writing about it at the moment so I'm very much immersed in the journals I wrote and one of the things I got as a message time and time again from walking was the joy of slowing down and as I slowed down my mind slowed down and as my mind slowed down I became mindful as I walked and as I became mindful I noticed nature, I noticed the land, I started to feel as though I could hear the land trying to communicate. There's a lot to be said for slowing down rather than speeding up. So I'm really curious about your reflections on slowing down and what is it about our world and our desire to do things ever faster, To get things done more quickly? We find ways of speeding up but rather than finding then we've got through all our tasks more quickly and all we need to do is relax and have a bit of leisure time, What seems to happen instead is that we just continually pile in more and more things to do. The universe is asking me to reflect on slowing down again. Now I don't live my life at half the pace most people live their lives at and yet I can see that I too fill my life with stuff and try and do things quickly. For me there is some real wisdom in slowing down, In giving myself breathing space, In giving myself time just to stare into our log burner fire and watch the flames. I don't need to keep filling my time with stuff. That's what I'm getting from this message of slowing down and I'm curious to know if it resonates with you and if it does, Where in your life are you being asked to slow down? You can join me again tomorrow for another Five Minutes in Nature. I look forward to connecting with you again then.

Reviews

I'm completely with you on the importance of slowing down. Our brains (and bodies) need a break from the constant doing and thinking in order to grow stronger. I'm an advocate for boredom. In the space that boredom creates, we become more creative and imaginative. Modern society has encouraged people to be forever busier and as a consequence their attention spans have shrunk which in turn makes them busier as they strive to fill the time with "stuff". The "perfect" vicious circle.
"The quieter you become, the more you can hear." Ram Dass.

I loved this piece on slowing down. One that I noticed in many of your previous tracks you are out recording 5 minutes in nature at different times of the day. Seeing the stars at night gives a different feel than watching the sun rise for example.

I like to get up early, not get more done but to slow down. As I walk to the kitchen to turn on the kettle I walk slowly and softly it makes me feel and sense the day as it is. Even be conscious of each foot step as it touches the floor.

That is where I meet the day as my morning ritual unfolds.

Thanks for these great reminders Liz. ✌️❤️😌

It’s paradoxical that the technology that should give us the time and space to slow down, actually crates a busier and more occupied life. 🤔

Thank you Liz 🙏🏽 I’ve recently been guided by the universe to slow down when it comes to work, and walk towards a slower way of working that aligns with my nervous system 💖 xxx