When Slowing Down Is the Lesson

When you slow things down, you give the mind time to settle into a pattern. That’s when meaning sneaks in. That’s when stories stick. That’s when a person, weather a child or adult, starts making their own connections instead of passively consuming information.

While I was filming the Inside Look series for Myths, Science, and Sacred Accounts, I kept catching myself thinking about speed.

We live in a culture that insists everything should be fast and flashy. Videos should hook you instantly and change constantly. If something doesn’t grab attention in the first few seconds, we’re told it isn’t worth focusing on.

I really don't like speedy flashy mentally-draining content. I like to take my time once-and-a-while. As a creator, my artistic side loves creating slow-burn experiences with interesting endings. I like to sit in a space and absorb it for a while. And so, I was left wondering about the speed we expect from learning itself.

Flashy isn't how real learning works. And it isn’t how the human mind works.

When you slow things down, you give the mind time to settle into a pattern and a rhythm. The brain relaxes into it. It starts to notice ideas and, instead of reacting, it begins processing and drawing conclusions that last.

That’s when real meaning sneaks in.

Stories don’t stick because they are loud, noisy, and full of explosions. They stick because they unfold. They give us space to wonder what comes next, to sit with an image, idea, or an emotion just long enough for it to connect to something inside of us.

That’s also when learning stops being passive.

A student who’s rushed from one bright idea to the next doesn’t have time to make connections. An adult doesn’t either. It's chaos, and it's exhausting. But when things move steadily, when nothing is demanding constant reaction, the mind starts doing its own quiet work. It fills in gaps. It asks questions. It builds understanding from the inside out.

That kind of learning doesn’t always look exciting from the outside. It's not the kind of learning that gets a lot of likes on social media. It looks calm. Sometimes it even looks slow. And a lot of the time, it doesn't feel like your progressing as fast as you "should" be.

But in those quiet, slow, lessons, we’re not just consuming information. We’re participating in it. We’re becoming part of the story instead of watching it pass by.

That’s the kind of learning I'm really trying to create for my son and the kind of space I’m trying to build here and in the curriculum I write. It's not flashy. It's not rushed.

It's a place where people and ideas are allowed to arrive at their own pace and stay just as long as they want.