Cognitive Slowing/No flowers for Algernon

[greenstorm]

Whip-smart, sharp, a little mean
Always ready with a come-back
Always willing to dive into new ideas and
Argue.

It's what we valued-
What we value. A performance
Of quick wit
Between one thing
And the next
Never losing audience
Attention
Never asking more
Than they can
Give
Solidifying their approval
Before their
Next appointment
Or text message.
Satisfied
They were worthy of our
Attention
We approve
And move on
To a quick vacation
In one country
A new this or that
Enough novelty
To fill
A bucket
List.

What if it took months to communicate an idea?
What if it took years to learn a place, what if we spent so long learning slow ideas
That each one had time to crease itself
On our faces and our hands, written markings of the lifetime
Of integration of single thought into an ecosystem
Of other deep thoughts?

What if we sought, not the fastest, but the slowest,
Not the flashiest, but the deepest,
Our thoughts poised in composed contemplation
Absorbing each nuance of what exists
Before sliding one toe and then another slowly
Into the bottomless pool of accumulated knowledge
Celebrating when we integrated with the slightest of ripples instead of the biggest splash?
What if, what if, what if we all moved gently,
What if we watched before we moved, humble in our abilities, leaned on the value of others' thoughts,
What if, what if, what if we sat by the fire in slow contemplation
Laid out a constellation of what ifs
Against a whole sky's worth of context
Before weaving our actions into the tapestry.

What if, what if, what if, what if, what if, our minds weren't slipping into tragedy but into wholeness. What if, after racing over the surface, we allowed us to finally rest and slip below the surface into the embrace of--

What if, what if, what if, what if,
But there are no awards, you can't measure slowness, can't value unfilled space, can't even wait until the end of a short novel or a long slow poem without answers


With respect to https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(24)00013-0/fulltext#: edited to fix link