Reject Urgency Culture

For the sake of your nervous system turn it down.

Refuse to participate.

Honor your natural pacing… and honor nature’s authentic pacing.

Rush rush rush.

It’s increasingly the way of the world.

The world that surrounds me, anyway.

For I do live in the Western world…

And in New York City for that matter.

I feel stationed here, at least for now, as if placed here by God’s own hand.

I’m here holding down the grids.

I’m here shining my light.

I’m here emanating my life force.

As I go on long walks… or to a cafe… or ride a subway…

I on-going-ly and inadvertently dispense a medicine into the very ethers around me.

A medicine desperately needed in these parts.

Even if nobody quite knows how much it’s needed.

I’m here doing life my own way.

I’m here as an emblem that life can be done differently.

I’m here role-modeling the living of life on my own unique timeline…

A life immersed in an unusual trajectory…

All right here nestled in this concrete jungle.

I’m here…

Where it’s all…

Hurry hurry hurry.

Get it done.

Yesterday.

It’s my god given duty to stand strong in the high winds blowing us on to the next thing and then the next, in rapid-fire.

I’m here to be as a pole extending upward and downward.

I’m here on the vertical while life here in New York City is lived on the horizontal. Everyone trying to get somewhere. Somewhere up ahead. And stat.

I’m here to be centered and sturdy and sacredly stubborn in being authentically me.

Rooted squarely within the staccato ticking of my very own authentic inner clock.

Rooted securely within my very own timing.

Adhering to my very own authentic speed limit.

And know that my speed is not one dimensional.

I’m not “fast” or “slow”…

I’m neither. For I go at the pace of ME.

But that means I can’t be rushed.

And so some might consider that slow.

In my case, if I am slow, it isn’t a deficit.

In my case, slow is superior.

Slow is present and aware.

Slow is taking in EVERYTHING.

Slow is rich, dense, and ultra-high quality.

My slower pace is compensated for by the fact I’m living deeply and broadly.

My life is unfolding more slowly because I’m living many lifetimes in one.

And I’m living in many dimensions at once.

And yet with the rush of the world and its ever-accelerating speedometer…

my nervous system does get jangled…

Rebelling.

Recoiling in horror.

The knots in my stomach tightening.

A subtle panic and anxiety are low key a fixture within me.

In the face of all the sheer rush rush rushing all around me.

I am alarmed, truth be told…

by the pacing.

By the endless scampering and sprinting.

Where are we rushing to?

Where are we so eager to get?

What’s so great, up there, ahead?

Why are we running full tilt…

Toward our grave?

Do we not see as plain as day that the flower can’t be forced into bloom?

That we ought not to flick the bud?

That the petals will unfurl resplendently in their own time.

And they will do so in an exquisite divine perfection.

Good food is slow food.

Washing. Slicing. Dicing. Seasoning. Marinating. Simmering. Into heights of deliciousness.

Creativity can’t be rushed.

It requires time.

It requires the descent into the depths… and the discovery… and the seasoning… and the marinating.

Creativity requires a surrender to the quest.

And it’s always two simultaneous quests.

A journey of self… as creator…

And a journey of creating.

Through creativity we BECOME.

We evolve.

We grow.

We transform.

We transmute.

We transfigure.

All within a sacred process of creating *something*… of bringing something forth from within ourselves.

Deadlines are important and have their rightful place. 

Deadlines create a structure and a subtle needed pressure.

But nowadays it’s as though the turnaround time is so fast (and inhumane) that it’s impossible to actually be creative.

So much of what’s created these days is hacked. Not all, of course, but much.

Hacked, assembled, coughed up, cobbled together, to meet a deadline. Lacking gravitas and authority. Lacking depth and substance.

Lacking soul.

I tell my kids, “TIME is the price you have to pay for true excellence.”

And methinks it’s true.

Here’s to taking the time we require… in order to enjoy true quality of life.

Love + Oneness,

Naomi