Not So Fast
Donella Meadows
Those of us who think the world
needs saving — from environmental destruction, rapacious greed, decaying
morals, drugs, crime, racism, whatever — keep very busy crusading for our
favourite remedies. School vouchers. Carbon taxes. Campaign reform. The Endangered Species
Act. A lower capital gains tax. Strong regulation.
No regulation. You know. That long list of mutually inconsistent Holy Grails
with which we like to hit each other over the head.
There’s one solution to the
world’s problems, however, that I never hear the frenzied activists suggest.
Slowing down.
Slowing down could be the single
most effective solution to the particular save-the-world struggle I immerse
myself in — the struggle for sustainability, for living harmoniously and well
within the limits and laws of the Earth.
Suppose we weren’t in such a
hurry. We could take time to walk instead of drive, to sail instead of fly. To clean up our messes. To discuss our plans throughout the
whole community before we send in bulldozers to make irreversible changes. To
figure out how many fish the ocean can produce before boats race out to beat
other boats to whatever fish are left.
Suppose we went at a slow enough pace not only to smell the flowers, but to feel our bodies,
play with children, look openly without agenda or timetable into the faces of
loved ones. Suppose we stopped gulping fast food and started savouring slow
food, grown, cooked, served and eaten with care. Suppose we took time each day
to sit in silence.
I think, if we did those things,
the world wouldn’t need much saving.
We could cut our energy and
material use drastically, because we would get the full good out of what we
use. We wouldn’t have to buy so many things to save time. (Have you ever
wondered, with all our time-saving paraphernalia, what happens to the time we
save?) We wouldn’t make so many mistakes. We could listen more and hurt each
other less. Maybe we could even take time to reason through our favourite
solutions, test them, and learn what their actual effects are.
Said Thomas Merton, who spent his
time in a Trappist monastery: ‘’There is a pervasive form of contemporary
violence to which the idealist . . . most easily succumbs: activism and
over-work . . . To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of
conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to
too many people, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to
violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work for peace. It
destroys the fruitfulness of his own work, because it kills the root of inner
wisdom which makes work fruitful.’’
A friend in India tells me that
the onslaught of Western advertising in his country is a cultural blow, not so
much because of the messages of the ads but because of their pace. The
stun-the-senses barrage of all tv programming,
especially ads, is antithetical to a thousands-year-old tradition of
contemplation. I can imagine that. I have been driven crazy by the somnolent
pace at which things get done in
What they know, actually, is that
time is life, and to go zooming through it is to miss living. Slow . . . d o w n. Do that first. Then, quietly,
carefully, think about what else might need to be done.
The only problem with this cure is
that I can’t prescribe it for others, because I have such trouble following it
myself. It’s so easy to get swept up in the hurtling pace of the world. Like
most of the other world-savers I know, I’m way too busy to eat well, sit
quietly, take a vacation, or even, some days, think.
Edward Abbey, the great curmudgeon
of environmentalism, knew better: ‘’It is not enough to fight for the land; it
is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish
and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests,
climb the mountains, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid
air, sit quietly for awhile and contemplate the precious stillness, that
lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your
head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and
I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over . . . those
desk-bound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes
hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: You will outlive the
bastards.’’
Good advice. Too bad I don’t have
time to take it. I have to go save the world.
Republished from Resurgence magazine, issue
184.