And then came the day when some of us understood that all we had known about time was wrong. It’s not precise, it’s not objective, it’s not limited. It’s not about being first, outrunning others, or even getting somewhere faster.

This was the day we would just drop out and start to live life at our own pace. Because our own pace was the only thing that mattered: Some of us would go faster, speak faster, think faster; others would go slower, speak slower, think slower.

We noticed that time and speed are much more personal than we had ever thought: It doesn’t matter which measurable speed you attain, but how you feel about it personally. If you run a marathon in 2.5 hours, then it’s 2.5. If it is eight hours, then it’s eight. Even if you take the shuttle bus just to attend the after-party, people will cheer. ((I did that in Berlin, recently.))

The machine didn’t like to see these thoughts. Because big systems don’t seem to work well when everybody moves at their own pace. Just think of highway traffic.

But while some of the people around us gave in and lost their pace of life, we didn’t.

We didn’t let them distract us.

We just opted for our own speed, and, in that sense, we became anarchists. Not of the kind that throws bombs and burns cars. But of the kind that takes responsibility for their own lives and their own speed and their own time, and of the kind that create their own rules that serve them while not harming others.

This is the nature of friendly anarchism, and it’s the essence of living life at tempo giusto. In other news, it looks as if light just became slow. Astounding, and yet another proof.