Trust and relationship come from the humanity of pause

By Dave Wieneke | in | 2 Jan 2020 | 4 Comments

I’ve been offline helping with end of life care for a friend

Time is a luxury. It’s the earnest money of consideration. Perhaps every other gift is to a degree a proxy for time. The duration of this trip changed it from being a visit to living together and finding joys before they’re peeled away or lost in time, like tears in rain.

What I’m Reading: Thank You for Being Late by Thomas L. Friedman

Friedman writes ‘big idea’ explanatory journalism; this one is about how technology, with Moore’s Law as its engine room, has accelerated life in ways which humanity is struggling to keep up to. The focus of my work, digital transformation, is how organizations seek to adapt to these forces. He also considers the conflicting need for individuals to adapt and prosper in this environment of change while protecting their personhood from a choreography determined by the metabolism of technology.

Friedman builds the arch of the book on an immense collection of tech and business facts, with bridges of insight on humanity in an age of change. Periodically I write posts about the need for the darkness of poetry to give rest from the constant light of technology, or the need for Solitude in an age of connection and immediacy – so Friedman’s assertions resonate with me. In fact, I probably have a latent post of the lost value of boredom as a foundation for childhood, know what I mean?

Rather than critiquing the work – I’d rather share a passage which I expect to be looking back on in the new year, in the hope you may find it of benefit too.

“…technologists want us to think that patience became a virtue only because in the past ‘we had no choice’ – we had to wait longer for things because our modems were too slow or our broadband hadn’t been installed, or because we hadn’t upgraded to the iPhone 7. “And so now we’ve made waiting technologically obsolete.”…

“But the ancients believed that there was wisdom in patience, and that wisdom comes from patience…Patience wasn’t just about the absence of speed. It was the space for reflection and thought. We are generating more information and knowledge than ever today, but knowledge is only good if you reflect on it.

And it is not just knowledge that is improved by pausing. So, too, is the ability to build trust., ‘to form deeper and better connections, not just fast ones, which other human beings’, adds Dov Siedman. ‘Our ability to forge deep relationships – to love, to care, to hope, to trust, and to build voluntary communities based on shared values – is one of the most uniquely human capacities we have. It is the single most important thing that differentiates us from nature and machines. Not everything is better faster or meant to go faster. I am built to think about my grand-children. I am not a cheetah.”

Best wishes on your New Year, and the aspirations you have both for change, and the continuity of all you love. Dave