Angel Antonio Herrera: “Slowness is urgent”

Luis Landero told me the other afternoon that conversation requires slowness, and it’s true. If we rush, we will never get beyond the nervous exchange of understanding each other without understanding each other. Whatsapp is used to agree on restaurants and make reservations … A girlfriend, but not much else. I can’t even tell you the time of my father’s wake. Our tense society fuels the frenzy of wanting to get anywhere and ultimately getting nowhere. We are frustrated athletes. Slowness has always been an honor, even a grace, but today, slowness is a luxury, and so are the conversations it facilitates. Words always come, so slowness must be revived, and as even Renfe knows, it also requires saving silence. Alfonso Usía has just published his self-titled biography of Madrid, “Bajo cielo”, which finds Alfonso talking about the underground and the skies of this bustling capital, but which itself reveals a slow itinerary. The rise of Rosalía, which suddenly brought with it the electricity of mysticism, is only a way of living youth from the gusts of slowness, since prayer is a vertical suspension, and the spirit is an upward usage. Even his latest album is more like a musical monastery of art, not as raucous as various currently popular reggaeton pieces. To want to become a nun or a monk, according to Baudelaire’s maxim, is not in a hurry, and the dandy, that ecstasy of excellence, is, according to Baudelaire’s maxim, one who never wants to leave himself until further notice. There seems to be a tendency to return to the classical nature of life, which alternates between procrastination and self-absorption. As a result, the silence and slowness that have always existed appear to us either as a cause to be invented or as a benefit of new conquests. Without slowness there would be no thought, and therefore we would be speechless. We have to introduce new, very useful features that we’ve always had.

Session limit reached

• Access to premium content is made available to the public courtesy of the institution it belongs to, but there are currently too many users logged in at once. Please try again in a few minutes.

Please try again

Session limit exceeded

• Only three sessions can be started at a time. Now that you have closed the oldest session, you can continue to browse the remaining sessions without any restrictions.

Continue browsing