Embracing My Inner Tortoise

A conversation over coffee with a dear friend, brought me back to Aesop's Fables, trickster Hares and a deeper appreciation for the thickness of the Tortoise's shell.

It has been some years now, and for those who know me today it might be an adjustment to visualize Randall as rising advertising creative. Still, I respond viscerally to a description of the tale that paints the Hare as one who would use Ingenuity and Trickery to best his doggedly determined counterpart. And, I see its truth.

In the long and sometimes degrading walk from that place, a place of affluence and easy money but a losing of the Self, some deliciously surprising things have happened. One is that instead of working all nighters for days on end to fulfill the demands of unseeing clients, I have developed a concept for a body of work intending to plumb the depths of our very human grasp of things. . . largely using images of hands. But, the idea I want to speak to here has little to do with my work. I am writing to endorse the value of slowness.

As an artist I am becoming deeply aware of the push of prosperity, the push to produce in large numbers and the push to abandon oneself to the utter inevitability of it all. Get in step, or be left behind. Having left a twenty-year career in Advertising as a Creative Director, I am weary of a world where everything is designed to be seen and harvested for its profit.

My current drawings take over 300 hours each to produce - and that is just on-the-table time. When my father was dying a few years ago, and I was his primary care giver, he would come and sit with me while I drew. We often spent most of our waking hours together his last two years; and because I was present and 'moving slow' as I worked, I got to see and know a man I had entirely missed as a young and self-absorbed business man. I learned (and felt) the cadence of his walk, reveled in the giddy laughter embedded in his stories of youth, and saw in his eyes the fear of his impending death. I believe that cadence shows up in my work, layers are revealed and truths told.

My artistic coffee-drinking friend, is completing his Masters in Film, was recently married and is about to become a first-time father. I can hear a keen awareness of 'slow' in his voice, for it is he who utters, "Slow, is the new taboo." I wish I had asked him then if he'd ever felt the suction of those one-person waterslide tubes. I remember sitting at the precipice one day imagining I am in control and then screaming involuntarily when I realize I have become a watery human torpedo about to be shot from a canon.

Slowness is not slothfulness.

I hadn't realized it but, some years ago I made a distinct move toward my inner tortoise. For example, when I work on remodeling projects, I have stopped using compressor driven nailers. I know, those guys that use drivers are really fast. In fact, its hard to compete with them in terms of time or cost. But, I have discovered something as I have been called to undo some of their work. When I pull out wood trim, as often as not, these speedy carpenters missed the underlying wood they were supposed to hit. I find two or three times the necessary nails used, as if more nails missing will make it better. When I take the time to pre-drill each nail, an entirely remarkable thing happens - I call feel the wood, I can hear that the nail hit true. How is that like your life?

Warning: Embracing the craft of Slowness carries risk. Sadly, feeling life and its emotions more fervently, as well as having time to see the way in which all things are connected has a steep price. It may mean pushing back against ridiculous deadlines at work. It may mean looking for different work and a tighter budget. It may mean a relationship needs to be re-examined. You may be ridiculed, harassed or outright shunned. Ultimately my hope isn't for a bunch of individuals to make an individual stand - though that is a great starting place. My real hope is for more of a cultural awakening and cultural shift toward Slowness. In the meantime, I am concentrating on a thicker shell.