📌 My Time is a Vehicle Already in Motion
The current hyperfocus on pace ignores the beauty of having different gears
Productivity has always been something that humans obsessed over. (Sure, at one point, “productivity” was tied to how many kids you cranked out and kept alive, but still.) So, maybe it’s not shocking that in the post-pandemic years, I’ve been seeing an uptick in slow work and slow productivity talk. I have to say, though, I find this new strain of pace-based-focus just as befuddling as the older uber-productivity one was.
In terms of longevity, there is value in taking things slower than many of us do—not throwing “work harder,” “work smarter,” and “working with more discipline” at every problem. How much can we push ourselves, and to what extent, before it backfires? How many times does the “shortcut” send us down the unnecessarily bumpy path that breaks an axle?
And, yet, I also “get” that humans are natural-born experts at shirking. I mean, just look at how little we floss! How does encouraging us to follow our “natural” (often slovenly) tendencies push us to fulfill our capacious potential? We DO want to grow…right? Even if we do so while growling at our “Bigger, Better, Faster, More!” style of society.
Anyhow, I guess I’m trying to say: I understand the friction between what we may be inclined to do and what we seem to be expected to do.
Having said that, taking my time is a double-edged sword. Our mortal meat suits are essentially automated vehicles already in motion. I have no idea how long is left on the journey—only that it’s less than it used to be and that there will be random surprises on the road to deal with.
I think what bugs me about focusing on work pace, whether with the bent of speeding up OR slowing down, is the idea that we, somehow, aren’t all already doing our best1. And to that, I say (quoting Jamie Kincaid in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler): “Oh, boloney!”
The world’s always telling creators how they aren’t creating “good enough”—as if the goal was for us to have to compete with either A.I.’s relentless “crap out anything, instantly” or competing artistically with some master who took 15 years to learn to paint a grain of rice. Look, I’m not telling you not to go either of those routes, if it appeals to you! I guess what I’m saying is…why are we reading these creative-self-help books, anyway, instead of doing our creative work?
As always, I don’t think anyone (outside of me) needs to agree with me. Yet, just to put my own thoughts in order, this is why I find the focus on slow JUST as off-putting as on fast.
My “natural” pace is not one constant; it’s the product of an equation that depends on a set of variables, only some of which I can control. It’s the result of all that is going on in my life in any given year/month/week/day/hour. Particularly as a parent, I usually have a shocking lack of control over those circumstances. So, instead of worrying about pace—whether it’s too slow or too fast—I will focus on if it FEELS like I am shirking, or not. And just try to survive?
Creation-hours-spent and meaning may be correlated, but they are not a causation relationship. I have wasted many, many hours on projects that led (creatively) nowhere and some scarily productive hours that elicited high reader emotional responses because I was just in the “right zone” to tackle something. Anyhow, everything takes a long time (in terms of one lifetime) and no time at all (in geologic terms). Is the pasta necklace my kid slapped out in a few minutes any less meaningful than a report he took weeks to write? (Obviously not—that necklace is 🔥.) What is meaningful to us, as creators or readers, is based on how we FEEL about it, which is why the demand for cute animal memes will always outpace the demand for diet seltzer water, even though (I assume) diet seltzer water is probably decently hard to produce.
Obsession is not my goal; joy is. Here’s something kids know, but we forget as we age: meaning does not have to come from toil at all. Joy is incredibly meaningful!
I will embrace my ambition, which is to create work that readers would like to share with their children (if and when they are old enough to have children)2. I will be idealistic enough to believe that I can do that, and that every day is a new opportunity to learn something and grow in my art.
I will also embrace my natural impulse to write a lot of kinds of stories for kids before I die. I will be realistic enough to know that not every dotless-i needs to be obsessed over; sometimes, it’s enough to dot it and move on. I will also realize that every day is a new opportunity to maybe finish something.
I only control so much of the perceived quality aspect. That does not abdicate me of responsibility, particularly if I am asking others to pay me their hard-earned money in exchange for it! But quality is so subjective—and varies (even for me! what I think of as quality!) from year to year, month to month, and day to day. Anyhow, I find the idea that doing a lot of things means I’m not obsessing “enough” over quality problematic. Every artist decides this for themself; being a fan of both da Vinci and Warhol, I guess I feel high-quality art is a very large, happy spectrum. If my art-making spectrum allows joy to be seen by someone (even if, gulp!, that someone was to sometimes just be me!), that “counts.”
Of course, I never want to create slipshod work—but I want to do efficient enough work so that I can do A LOT of it within my unknown mortal time constraint. So, I’ll be right here, sometimes working hard and sometimes daydreaming—and being okay with playing it as it comes.
Whatever pace you go at, it only needs to be enjoyable for you, even though barely anyone else will travel exactly next to you (and will, instead, either hang back or speed ahead). That’s okay. Their speed does not invalidate yours, and vice-versa.
Your friend who assumes you know how much to push the gas pedal (or brake),
Elayne
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Maybe we just don’t want to admit our best isn’t always what we want it to be? But isn’t that the human condition?
I want current child readers to want to keep “holding on” to my books and adults to have trouble putting them in the Goodwill bin. Fingers crossed!