Seeing slowly is not wasted time

The teenage philosopher Ferris Bueller once said: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” In the nearly 40 years that have passed since Ferris took a day off to appreciate the fleeting innocence of high school, life has only moved faster. And we look around less.

The great irony is that we’re supposed to have more free time than ever. Each technological advance promises to make our lives easier and give us the freedom to enjoy life. But we don’t gain freedom. We’re expected to be even more productive.

5 Minutes in Nature: Finding your rainbow

When a bright rainbow can stretch all the way across the horizon, it might be hard to think of it as your own. Dozens, if not hundreds, of other people must be seeing it, too, right?

But even if that rainbow spans one of the world’s largest cities, any rainbow you see is decidedly your own. Everybody gets their own. Any rainbow you see forms on a personal arc drawn from the shadow of your head. Even if we’re standing side-by-side, we’re technically seeing different rainbows.

This idea that even a vast rainbow can be something personal is a core element of my Five Minutes in Nature project, which is on view until July 21 at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute in Jamestown, New York.