There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting.
- Milan Kundera

What strikes me when I read Kundera's quote is the word secret. These are secret bonds. With some moments of reflection, the truth of the whole statement is fairly evident, but why are these bonds secret?

My guess is that they are secret because we have not noticed them before. As recently as a generation ago, these bonds were a common, intuitive understanding. People lived their lives with a conscious realization of the balance between slowness and remembering, between speed and forgetting. They knew that leisure was a necessary part of a balanced life. They knew that if you moved too fast you were bound to forget something.

We know it too, but only if we stop to collect it. Contemporary life does not afford us the intuitive awareness of our forebears. It is, in fact, counterintuitive to a life in balance. Unthinking acceptance of our culture's rate of speed is a terrible, yet common, error. These formerly secret bonds must now be noticed with full intention, and more, shouted from the rooftops.

If we don't notice the bond between speed and forgetting, we will not forget what we need to remember. And we will constantly wonder why life is not working out the way we wanted it to, or why we are always seeking inner peace and not finding it.

One of the secrets about forgetting: You forget that you forgot.

No matter what today's schedule is, don't forget Stillpoints. They curb forgetfulness.

Excerpt from Quiet Mind by David Kundtz