Image Source: Debbie Millman

Wonder While We Wait

When I was first starting out, I wish I’d known that anything worthwhile takes a long time….I wish I’d known enough not to be so afraid to go after what I really wanted.

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In thinking about the speed of success, consider the following questions: • Why are you rushing? Are you competing with yourself or other people? • Are you in a race to succeed to feel better about who you are? Why do you think this will work?

— Debbie Millman “Anything Worth While Takes a Long Time”

I think Covid19 quarantine forces us to consider the speed of “success,” or more fully, fulfillment. “I went to the store today,” is big news nowadays. Maybe moving like the tortoise teaches us to pay attention a bit more. There’s the wide-open opportunity for reflection which becomes more needed as we learn the trauma this time causes.

Poetry moves a methodical speed. Although I haven’t written much of it these days, I heard someone who probably has. While mentioning how we come to know things in the web age, Mary Ruefle mentioned that instead of constantly moving from one thing to another, she would rather “dwell.”

We tend to, as human beings, our impulse is, once we know, once we have the answer, we move on. So we’re constantly moving from one thing to the other. I would rather inhabit the question, or dwell. For me, that is the place I want to live in.

— Mary Ruefle, On the Tinhouse Podcast with David Naimon (via Austin Kleon)