We all understand the importance of moving fast. In business, completing deadlines builds trust and invites the next step. In school, completing exams before time is up allows you to check your answers for any mistakes. In relationships, fast and open communication generally outweighs slow and reserved.

But in some contexts, moving fast doesn’t make as much sense. Watching a movie at 3x speed strikes us as wrong: the purpose of the movie is to be immersed in the visuals, the music, the dialogue, the way the director intended. Watching it faster gives us time to get on with the day, but then what? What are you looking forward to that is more important than watching it properly? Another movie that you don’t fully experience?

Alan Jacobs summarises this dilemma well on his blog:

“My question about all this is: And then? You rush through the writing, the researching, the watching, the listening, you’re done with it, you get it behind you — and what is in front of you? Well, death, for one thing. For the main thing.

But in the more immediate future: you’re zipping through all these experiences in order to do what, exactly? Listen to another song at double-speed? Produce a bullet-point outline of another post that AI can finish for you?

The whole attitude seems to be: Let me get through this thing I don’t especially enjoy so I can do another thing just like it, which I won’t enjoy either. This is precisely what Paul Virilio means when he talks about living at a “frenetic standstill” and what Hartmut Rosa means when he talks about “social acceleration.”

I say: If you’re trying to get through your work as quickly as you can, then maybe you should see if you can find a different line of work. And if you’re trying to get through your leisure-time reading and watching and listening as quickly as you can, then you definitely do not understand the meaning of leisure and should do a thorough rethink. And in both cases maybe it would be useful to read Mark Helprin on “The Acceleration of Tranquility.”