Time-boxing in the fast lane

”Writing is reflection” is the caption for my Medium account. And it is. Reflection is the engine behind all my writing. I do my best thinking while writing. In society today though, we don’t give much room for reflection, do we? Or rather – we haven’t, for a very long time, and now that reflection is becoming the word of the day again, we don’t really remember how it’s done anymore.

”There’s got to be an app for that…?”

Research shows reflection is a factor for good and valuable outcomes; it’s good for the brain, good for the soul, good for business. Alright, so now we all want to do it – if we could just remember how.

I don’t know, there’s just something about this time that we’re living in… It doesn’t add up. It takes things away, yet expects everything in return – with interest. What is that? Did our modern time not take math in school? If you take something out, you have to put something else in, or you’re going to get less in the end – it’s how it works.

(And no, buying shit, doesn’t count as ”putting something else in”. That is what we refer to as an ”illusion”.)

It also takes place almost solely in the fastlane, and tries to squeeze brief time-boxes for slowness, ”mindfulness” and reflection into filled-to-the-brim calendars, wondering what the big deal is.

A few weeks back, I was in a discussion (on Facebook, so it barely counts either) about the value of supporting an old, traditional bookstore which resides in a ”rather fancy” (understatement) quarter. in the center of Stockholm. It’s ”always” been there, but these days is struggling to compete with online bookstores, e-books and a general decline in book-reading, when people turn to their phones and Netflix-accounts for entertainment. I was arguing that a bookstore like that is an experience beyond ”buying books”, one that online bookstores can never compete with. But I was in definite minority against the guys arguing that if the bookstore can’t work up enough financial interest in their customers, it has no place in the highly commercial center of a modern city.

And then the question:

”When was the last time you actually spent money in that bookstore?”

Touché. It’s been at least 6 years – mostly because I’ve lived abroad, but still. I’ve been back for 6 months now, gone by at least 10 times, but still haven’t gone in there even once. So what am I yapping about?

I’m saying nobody’s immune to the time. I’m certainly not. I have ideas and ideals – but I’m still running in the fast-lane, timeboxing as best I can to fit everything in, inluding soul, mind and ideals. But still while running in that fast lane, struggling to keep up – just like everybody else. I’m no exception. Seeing the lemmings running alongside of me doesn’t mean I know how to get out of the race.

But I might go visit a certain bookstore today. If I have time.

Edit: Well… Maybe next week.