Going Fast

Are we too impatient to be intelligent?

You’re driving on the motorway at 60, you realize you’re going to be five minutes late for an appointment, so you welly it. And after driving at an insanely fast and dangerous speed for about eight minutes, you suddenly realize your arrival time has only improved by one minute.

This is fascinating. Because to a physicist, they’re exactly the same. But when I present the information about time and distance in a different way, your reaction is now completely different. What it effectively says is: going quite a bit faster when you’re going slowly is a really big gain. Going very fast when you’re already going fast is the action of a dickhead.

I find myself slowing down a lot to let my kid try new things like putting on a pair of sandals. It’s new and fun to try. Sure, I can do it for them and speed the whole process up. But that ruins the experience and enjoyment of learning!

Slow down. It’s a lot of fun.