Don’t microwave the moment
We mostly treat walking as a way of getting somewhere, something we'd happily swap for a vehicle that asks nothing of us. Or we treat it as exercise, for the health of the body. It's hard to argue with that logic. And no need to.
But I've come to see walking as the simplest way out of a boxed mind.
For me it's a regular practice, sometimes daily. Time away from the demands of the world, noticing what has accumulated, and shedding what isn't the walk.
What's left is relaxed attention to what's here. Walking gives you that for free.
This week we locked eyes and nodded at each other. It’s been almost six months. We smiled… only in the eyes, inside, where no one could see that we had seen each other, finally.
A few things crossed my path this week. I'm not going to make them prove one point. Walk past them at your own pace, and watch what the mind does between them.
Under a tree:
"Gathered beneath the Iroko or Baobab tree in village centers, entire communities solve civil disputes. Around the Palaver, all voices are respected and no member of the community is denied participation."
Caden McIlhenny, "The Enduring Technology of the Majlis", Conscious Collective, April 17, 2026.
McIlhenny sets the Majlis, with its cushions in a circle and coffee passed between friends and enemies alike, against the Boardroom: "its long cold table, led by one figure, designed to protect hierarchy". A Palaver, Sub-Saharan Africa’s close kin to the Majlis, can take "hours if not days" to reach consensus.
I wonder if our performance-oriented culture and the boardroom go together, the way walking, relaxed attention and the Majlis go together. If so, we don't bring the Majlis back by performance-tuning and optimizing it. We could just go out and walk, and the Majlis might emerge from it.
It's the coddiwomple brought to life: travelling purposefully towards a destination you can't quite name.
A lull:
"Sometimes great conversations just need time. Sometimes great ideas just need space, and even a lull before they arrive."
Mark McCartney, LinkedIn, October 22, 2026.
McCartney describes an online conversation with two friends that felt like going through the motions, until about forty minutes in. Then an idea "flooded us with energy" and the talk ran another fifty minutes. He asks how often we try to “microwave the moment.”
What I said back:
My reply to Mark, borrowed from a voice memo I'd recorded, prepping for a podcast:
"You don't get a shortcut for free... It costs you something. And the repeated application of shortcuts cost you more and more and more in your life. And it all looks like it's hanging together and it's all working... But you don't notice the hollowing out that happens on the inside."
In the memo I noticed that when I'm in a hurry with an AI, I stop answering the questions it asks and keep reinforcing my own rules so the thing gets done fast. It’s what we do with people: we press them into the shape we need and call it efficiency.
“If I don't show up fully in each moment, because I'm shortcutting my way through life, who wins and who loses? It's worth sitting with.”
Listen to the memo (~5 min, pauses included):
The shortcut happens because we believe we're on a journey to a destination. But what we're looking for is here. And the shortcut is the constant missing of that point.
A shortcut can deliver exactly what it promised, and still never answer the belief that what we want is somewhere else.
Back where it started:
Presence isn't a standard to pass. Distraction is part of it. Can you notice you're distracted, and let that be fine? Space doesn’t judge why something rests in it, and it doesn't ask it to earn its place.
I didn't come to this from nowhere. The Ismaili community I grew up in, and my parents, contain the seeds of what is now my expression. What I unknowingly inherited from them is that nothing is above or beneath the grace of trying to give your full attention to whatever comes your way.
Maybe that’s why the Majlis felt so familiar. I grew up sitting in circles like that.
What are you hurrying towards that is already here?
This week, take one walk (or a roll, or a long sit by a window) with no destination and nothing to improve. Let your mind wander, and wonder. Don't tidy the jumps. When it drifts, notice that, and let it be part of the walk. If someone joins you, let the conversation have its lull.
If you'd like something to sit with afterwards, I wrote a short reflection On Time: why busy is never really about the clock. And for a deeper take on the body's side of it, read Greg Pallone's piece on the four muscles that decide how well you age.
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