This was originally sent as a newsletter for Of Pens & Paintbrushes. If you’d like to get this directly in your inbox, you can sign up here, at the Newsletter sign up page.
First off, shop updates:
- Fountain pen inks are here. One of the nine initial colors has sold out already.
- I have a list of other ink colors planned, but had to get back to making pens for Patreon Pen supporters. I’m doing something ambitious (as usual) and it’s taking a LOT of time because of how thorough I have to be – which feels like being slow, only… well, I’ll get to that in a minute.
And off we go.
I had a mentor for a few years, back when I lived in North Carolina, USA, and whenever I’d get frustrated or apologize for being slow, he’d correct me:
“You’re NOT slow – you’re THOROUGH.”
To this day, I repeat that to myself when I’m feeling slow or behind on some arbitrary metric. I’m not slow, I’m thorough. I’m not slow – I’m taking the extra time to get familiar with whatever it is I’m doing or where I am or who I am with. I’m taking the time to really understand and experience deeply. I am choosing to use my time to observe, watching for additional insights that might rise to the surface when I stop running to catch up, and let the inner waters still.
Baby steps, small incremental movements, are both better than nothing and a chance to be thorough. Like the way you discover details around you when waiting in a slow moving line, or when you spend time in a waiting room for extended stretches of time. Sometimes slowly and thoroughly is the only way available to you – some work demands it, some stages in life require it in ways that test your patience to the breaking point. Sometimes, slow & thorough is all you have to give.
As frustrating as it can feel, the chance to pause, to observe, to watch, and notice? In a world that’s constantly rushing, seeking out the quickest, cheapest, most efficient means in all things, there is something to be said for allowing yourself to take one small step and pause until you’ve deeply experienced where that step took you.
It’s not slow – it’s thorough.
Wishing you peace in your thorough moments,
A. Markov
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This was originally sent as a newsletter for Of Pens & Paintbrushes. If you’d like to get this directly in your inbox, you can sign up here, at the Newsletter sign up page.