Lately, I’ve noticed that everything around me is in a hurry.

Roast a chicken crank up the heat and shorten the time as much as possible. Finish a task, three steps, five minutes, immediate results. Even “waiting” has somehow been rebranded as inefficiency.

Perhaps that’s why the microwave became so beloved. Fast. Convenient. Instant outcome. But a chicken cooked at the highest heat in the shortest time often ends up scorched on the outside and dry within. The fat and aroma that should have slowly rendered and seeped through never get the chance they are forced out before they can exist.

I suddenly remembered how I used to dry my hair. In a rush, I would turn the dryer to the hottest, strongest setting and blast it directly at my scalp. At the time, all I cared about was getting it dry quickly. I didn’t notice that the ends were gradually turning brittle, dull, and lifeless. It wasn’t that my hair was weak. I simply refused to wait.

So many things are like that. What should ripen slowly is pressured to grow up too fast. What requires low heat and quiet fermentation is exposed to intensity. What deserves a process is edited into a result. We say we “don’t have time,” but I’m starting to wonder: do we truly not have those extra minutes? Or is something pushing us from behind? Performance metrics? The rhythm of comparison? Someone else’s completed progress bar? Or have we quietly stopped believing that slowness can also lead somewhere?

There is an old Chinese parable about a farmer who pulled his rice seedlings upward because he thought they were growing too slowly. He believed he was helping them grow faster. This expression “pulling seedlings to help them grow” has since become a metaphor for forcing development before its time.

The most tragic part of that story is not that the seedlings die. It’s that sometimes they survive but never become what they were meant to be.

What we are losing is not speed. It is the patience that allows something to become fully itself. Perhaps the real question is not, “Why is this so slow?” but rather, who taught us that slowness is failure?



—— XC Scribbles · 壹佰壹拾玖 CXIX 🌱