Life In The Slow Lane

Listening to youth and somewhat beyond, you find that speech has speeded up. It isn't my elder years that can't keep up with the norm, it's simply that generally speaking, speaking is in the fast lane. In fact, walking down a city street or driving on the roads doing it as quickly as you can is the rule. About the only place you can wander in a leisurely fashion is on a pathway in the forest unless there are joggers in the area or bikers tearing up the dirt. Fast is the rule. If you can do it faster, the theory appears to be,  you do it better. "Slow and steady wins the race" is a fallacy. Today, Mr. Rabbit wins and Mr. Turtle is dust. There are times when I am shopping a nice young lady explains the benefits of a garment or a pair of shoes  so rapidly that I think she is speaking another language. I yearn to be in the far south of this continent where slow speech is considered an art. My favorite radio host, used to be understandable at six in the morning but after he came back from a Covid stint, he somehow reverted to fast talk so that even he couldn't be understood. I thought, have I turned up the rpms or something? His keepers must have warned him to slow down a bit because gradually he returned to a normal verbal pace, and I was able to pick up every little word. I think some of the younger set who fast talk, have transferred their rapid thumb picker texting style to their own repartee which makes them decodable only to their peers. The entire world beyond mere speech has become faster. Vehicles have become a prime example of it. On the freeways, no one does the speed limit and if it is ahered to, other drivers honk or zip around impatiently to pass. In a thirty mile an hour zone, honestly, do you hold to that speed? We elders who recall the days when fifty miles an hour was an accident waiting to happen, might yearn for the times when a slower world knew about "getting there is half the fun". We could see the birds in the trees as we passed, be amazed by the eagles on branches or  hawks swooping past  or deer grazing in a field. Now, we are going so fast that all we see is the back end of the car in front.