Further, in a way, to last Tuesday’s post, Vincent Ialenti explains how, as the treadmill of life speeds up, sublime outdoor spaces help us tap into timescales that are longer, slower, planetary…
Our experience of time is changing. For the philosopher Byung-Chul Han, the early 21st century has left us ‘whizzing without a direction’. Our world is shaped by the restless, disorienting rhythms of near-term deliverables, social media impression counts, technological obsolescence, shallow electoral cycles, rapid news cycles, frenzied culture wars, sudden stock market shifts, gig economy hustles, and occupational burnout. Though it all seems exhausting and unmanageable, the whizzing isn’t slowing: digital platforms now bombard us, minute by minute, with fragments of information that fail to cohere into meaningful narratives, and algorithms that hijack our neurochemical reward systems.
As the treadmill of post-industrial society speeds up, some of us have become so addicted to the stimulation that we struggle to imagine another way to live: psychological research shows that most people would rather receive electric shocks than sit quietly alone with their own thoughts. In his book The Scent of Time (2017), Han borrows a concept from Marcel Proust – une époche de hâte – to describe our overstimulated moment. The ‘age of haste’ has arrived. And its problems are pervasive.
When time whizzes by, individual moments blur together and we stop contemplating how each fits into broader arcs of history. We forget, Han laments, to engage in slower-moving forms of cognition such as wonder, curiosity and introspection. We forget how to reflect and be still. But what can we really do about the age of haste? For many of us, a slower, more contemplative life often feels unattainable. You may feel trapped by the directionless whizzing of the 21st century – trapped on an accelerating treadmill. Can you forge a new relationship with time?
Perhaps your first impulse is to find ways of escaping the age of haste. This is a mistake. We cannot simply break free by ‘exiting’ the world we inhabit. Confronting time requires more engagement with the wider world. This world, however, is not the one defined by near-term deliverables and neurochemically disrupting algorithms. It is the one that reveals itself when you glimpse the Milky Way on a cloudless night. It is the world that becomes clear when you gaze upon a mountain.
Encountering spectacular natural environments can cause a radical shift in how we think about ourselves and the world. According to the psychologist Dacher Keltner, feelings of awe, especially those inspired by natural scenery, can make us feel more collaborative, less egoistic, more altruistic, and more open to social connection. Over the past two decades, Keltner tested this idea through a series of experiments that examined how a person’s attitudes and behaviours change after experiencing awe-inspiring places or things. He found that natural splendour seems to put us in a headspace that lets us reflect on our short lives as ephemeral organisms dwelling on a fragile planet floating in a vast cosmos. This way of thinking can be transformative, but its power is not a recent discovery. Greco-Roman Stoic philosophers, for instance, encouraged retreats into the countryside to proactively ponder life. Venturing into breathtaking outdoor spaces seems to help us step back, slow down and, most importantly, think in the long term. I call this style of thinking ‘longstorming’ because encounters with sublime geophysical and ecological environments can invite the mind to brainstorm about our long-term futures and pasts…
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Fortunately, you do not need to visit charismatic ecosystems, like redwood forests, to begin longstorming. Walking down any city street or a country road, you can attune to how the rocks beneath your feet have multimillion- or multibillion-year geological histories. You can attune to how the air you breathe is altered by decades of carbon emissions. You can attune to the evolutionary histories of the chirping birds or even the cells in your body. Contemplating the passage of time is, at some level, available to anyone willing and able to longstorm – to begin wondering about the longer timelines of the universe. When you return to your smartphone afterwards, you might even look differently at the device itself: less attuned to the newsfeeds and pings, and more attuned to the ancient geological histories of the elements and minerals that make it up. After all, many of the metals found in smartphones, such as gold and copper, were formed billions of years ago among distant stars.
That said, certain geophysical features (like mountain vistas or idyllic countryside), certain activities (like hiking or backpacking), and certain mental states (like awe or calm) tend to draw out more enriching temporal experiences than others. This has an unfortunate implication: opportunities to have life-transforming brushes with the deep time of our planet and cosmos are not evenly distributed across society. Not everyone is capable of leisurely neighbourhood walks, let alone treks up to mountaintop vistas. Not everyone has the resources to make such a trip, let alone the time. If we want all of society to resist the age of haste, we first need to reform its entrenched structures of poverty – temporal or otherwise.
In the age of haste, longstorming should be a necessity, not a luxury. Without a deeper attunement to planetary time, the therapies of the 21st century will deliver healing that soothes us only in the moment. The age of haste requires healing of a different kind: longer, slower, planetary…
On the essential role of nature in our lives: “Do you find the 21st century overstimulating? Try ‘longstorming’,” from @vincent_ialenti in @aeonmag. Eminently worth reading in full.
(Image above: source)
* Ralph Waldo Emerson
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As we reground, we might send tectonic birthday slowly-accumulating birthday greetings to Émile Haug; he was born on this date in 1861. A geologist and paleontologist, he is known for his contributions to the theory of geosynclines (trenches that accumulate thousands of metres of sediment and later become crumpled and uplifted into mountain chains). From the position of the Alp he theorized that geosynclines form between stable continental platforms. He showed that geosynclinal subsidence accompanies marine regressions on the continental platform and that geosynclinal uplift accompanies marine transgressions on the continental platform. His Traité de géologie (1907-11), rapidly became an indispensable reference work. He also produced important works on the fundamentals of paleontology, stratigraphy, and tectonics.
