Open Heart Surgery is a newsletter devoted to exploring metamorphosis, unravelling, questioning and healing. I write essays and poems in service to personal and collective liberation - the personal, political, social, cultural and spiritual realms are all present here. This is a space for divergent thinking and open hearts.
Below is a poem I wrote at the beginning of the new Gregorian calendar year. (After all, there are countless ways to mark the passage of time, with different new years depending on where you reside on the earth and within which culture.)
Recently, or perhaps over the last year, I’ve been contemplating the illusion of time scarcity. This reflection has coincided with a personal effort to recalibrate and slow down my nervous system in relation to how I perceive time. Modernity keeps us in a constant, chronic rush.
Everything is fast, fast, fast. Information travels at lightning speed. Our transport is fast. Our food is often fast. Even our consumption is fast—consider the term “fast fashion.” Lately, I’ve been pondering how over-consumption is intrinsically linked to this relentless pace of living. It’s faster than our nervous systems have evolved to process. Faster than the earth can compost our waste.
Many of us were raised to live in a rush, taught to get as much done in a day as humanly possible, to always be productive and efficient. This is internalized capitalism: the voice that insists we must do more, achieve more, and stay perpetually busy. It’s this mindset that often turns us into mindless consumers.
But when we pause, breathe, and slow down, something shifts. We begin to make slower, more intentional decisions. I believe we consume less. When I’m hiking or camping in nature—away from my material comforts—I notice how little I want or need. I become less of a chronic consumer.
Chronic illness has been a personal wake-up call. I have spent most of my life rushing, a learnt habit from ancestral and childhood patterning. But now, I no longer have the energy to rush.
I no longer have time to rush.
I no longer wish to live my life rushing.
I am unlearning this tendency and habit every day—each time I pause, or allow myself a more generous timeframe to complete a task, or lower my expectations of my own productivity. I’ve realised that I can access more peace, calm, and joy when I embrace a slower pace of life.
Perhaps some of us are simply meant for a gentler rhythm, while others thrive in the fast lane. However having spent a significant portion of my life in the fast lane, I can assure you that it comes with consequences. We weren’t designed to live this fast.
I no longer have time to rush.
The Race That Nobody Wins:
My dear, Where are you running? The breath is caught in your throat, Your body is a scream of tension, The inflammation will kill you faster Than those pesticides, you fear. You were raised to run, Long before you could walk. You won races, You won competitions, You ran until the only thing You were racing, Was Time. The first lie they ever told you: Was that there was never enough of it. Scarcity whispered through the airwaves, Seducing an entire population To wage a war and to race against Time. Capitalism’s song is a ticking clock, Tick-tock, You are a cog in the machine, You are disposable. So, they trained you to run Till Death, As if you could evade her. The Protestants said You must work your way to Heaven, So your great-grandparents And grandparents Worked their way into the grave. There were wars and famines, To work was to survive - But when your mother’s father And father’s father died Long before you ever met them, Your father said: “Maybe life isn’t only about work - Nothing can buy more Time.” Still, you were raised to Run - To win, to finish, To get as much Done In a day as the Gods would permit. Fatigue was for the weak. Who has time to be sick? Only when the body broke, And the sirens wailed, Did the lie become clear - Scarcity is an insatiable monster, Forever hungry, Fuelled by fear. What if there was always Enough - Time, To rest? To breathe? To simply be? In this old way, We are only running faster But not toward Life Instead, we hurtle our weary bones Into the open arms of death. And yet - The clock keeps ticking. The still ones watch on, As capitalism opens its jaws wider To fit us all in.
- 35mm film photo by moi, Zapopan, México, circa 2017-18. (An embodiment of the rest and non-rushing energy I want to practice living this year).
Thanks for reading or listening. Let me know if this resonates.