Back

Slow | Day 4 of my 2023 Journal

Cecilie Conrad·Jan 4, 2023· 2 minutes
I do slow stuff, and there is no logic to it. I knit, and I play the handpan, and I draw, and I spend hours in the kitchen. I sit down to watch the colors of the sunset or paint the flowers in the garden. 

There is no logic in slow. It would be so much more rational to go for results, for efficiency, for achieving more, faster, better. 

But the thing is this: 

The irrational, intuitive presence is where real life is lived. The wine and the laughing and the warm sun rays on the cheeks, the days spent walking in nature, not going anywhere in particular, or the afternoons with the wool in my hands, or the drawings I sit with for hours while listening to Beethoven. Or the zen of cooking complicated meals. 

It is a trap we can all fall into, to think we need to be so organized, so structured, to have our finances and our workouts, and our carriers and our educations on a leash, making sure we get up early and work hard to achieve our goals on all levels. And then we run. We run and run and run. From the moment we wake up until the second we sleep. We run to tick all the boxes, to improve, to grow, to earn more, to learn more, and achieve more. 

Yet - we lose everything. In reality, the good life works the other way around. The structure, the focus, and the discipline are all servants of the good life. Of course, we need them, but we need them to make space for what is essential, to ensure we have time for sunsets, handmade presents, art, music, love, laughter, silence, and beauty. 

slow-collage

I am currently knitting a Hogwarts college pullover for my oldest son and more secret projects for others of my loved ones, which makes no sense. Yet I enjoy it immensely; it makes so much more sense than all the rational things I could have done. It makes sense in my heart and soul; that is where I want to live my life. 


Love and light

Cecilie-Underskrift-300x133

Cecilie Conrad

#4 of my 365 writing challenge - Read them all here

Dive into our podcast as we discuss Christmas' deeper layers and explore the complexities of Christmas. We are focusing on personal values, family dy…Read more
What does it mean to be happy? Often, we don’t stop to understand it while it is ongoing; we trot along and live, only to realize how much we had the…Read more
Two hours of planning and negotiations of who was coming and who was not finally got us out walking. Not far, and not all of us, as some are down wit…Read more
Life is this. The moving around. The people we move for. Reaching out to the opportunities, taking what is, and appreciating all the big and little g…Read more
I scored eight out of ten on the travel score sheet of my son-in-law, as I had brought a knife in the packed lunch - the knife took my two last point…Read more
Goodbye, Mexico City. That was fun! And exhausting. We want to come back, but we are also eager to leave. It is intense to visit the huge cities. Read more
The central story of this day is the earthquake. Thank God we have no pictures. Because there was nothing to take photos of. Except for a lot of peop…Read more
It is nice to sometimes just have a practical day. We needed papers to travel with the dogs, so Silke and I walked to the local vet; smiling, profess…Read more
The classic pilgrimage to the main art museum, the cathedral, the central square, and the Aztec ruins took us through a rich array of experiences. Th…Read more