going slow

“In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.”

The antidote to burnout and the existential inquiry it brings seems to be doing things that don’t scale in pursuit of things that can’t scale. It becomes exciting not to see what you can do without limits, but to see what you can do with them.

There’s a strong argument to be made that the most compelling solutions in the short history of the New Internet have been those that are the most commonplace, slow, ambient, and avoidant of hype. Products that actually work and will continue to.

I also think a lot about the old, iconic structures around the world that have stood the test of time and, in many cases, where we aren’t quite sure of all the details of how they were constructed. Marvels like the Colosseum, Roman aqueducts, or the Great Wall. Incredible architectural feats that were, by necessity, built to last and built slowly –... See more

My countervailing advice to people trying to understand something is: go slow. Read slowly, think slowly, really spend time pondering the thing. Start by thinking about the question yourself before reading a bunch of stuff about it. A week or a month of continuous pondering about a question will get you surprisingly far.

I'm really inspired by also how they were really quiet for a really long time at the beginning. They were not trying to become the next new success story on the pages of every paper. They were much more just like, "We're just going to prove through the quality of our output over time that we are doing something interesting, and weird, and different... See more

We adore quick wins these days: the kid on Youtube who goes viral and becomes an overnight sensation, the tech startup that goes from zero to unicorn in a year, the miracle makeover. At this point, the story of the tortoise and the hare is passé, and who really reads this to their kids anymore—I never have. We might as well rewrite the thing: the t... See more

800 page novels, 3.5 hour blockbuster movies, 4+ hour podcasts… Not to mention homesteading social media accounts with millions (and millions) of followers, slow food journaling version 2.4 promoting sourdough bread-making, old-school pickling and marmalade making — what’s going on?

Are we experiencing a new and evolved slow revolution? Is this the ... See more

The constraints of the medium, then, are the constraints of our embodiment, or at least that is my proposition to you. And these are, in part, the constraints of place and time. I can only be here now, and I can be here now only for so long, which means there are only so many things to which I can meaningfully attend at length and at depth. I may c

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