Slowness and repetition

Four strangers, a gong, and a tea kettle

Have you ever heard a gong’s whisper?

Slurp.

What will happen when our parents die?

Pour.

Will we ever stop performing?

Slurp.

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“We’re only fourteen minutes late” she said as we jaywalked through Grand St. Fourteen minutes didn’t seem too bad, all things considered. Maybe even the right amount of time to be “fashionably late” to my friend’s event.

I found out about the event through a tweet, of all places. Laura encouraged her followers to kick off the year “with tea artist Kristina Clark!” Tea artist!? I suppose anything and everything is art so why not have a tea artist as well.

I know tea is a thing for a lot people. I don’t have many things, unfortunately. When people ask me what I’m into, I struggle to come up with anything worth saying. I don’t think I have many hobbies. I’ve hiked before but I’m not into hiking. I’ve worked out before but I’m not into working out. I’ve ate before but I’m not into food. If I had to say something —gun to my head— I guess I’d say I’m into trying new things. Does that count as a hobby? So I bought two tickets to Laura’s event and added it to my calendar.

Of course, I’ve never been to a tea ceremony before nor did I have any idea what a “tea artist” was. I imagined it was not too dissimilar to a wine tasting. I pictured several people standing around in a room tasting different kinds of tea, each one prefaced by an intricate explanation of its background. “This one comes from this place… this one is part of the so-and-so ancient ritual” and so on.

The first rule of tea ceremonies, evidently, is: arrive on time. At 7:44 pm, fourteen minutes after the scheduled start of the event, we arrived at the front door. I pulled—nope. I pushed—nope. The door was locked and the ceremony seemed to carry on without us. Committed to quench my thirst for hot water, I knocked on the door and smiled. A few moments later, one of the hosts unlocked the door and greeted us. “We waited for you to begin! We locked the door at 7:25pm” he said, expecting our gratitude for letting us arrive up to five minutes early. We smiled and walked into the tea shop awkwardly removing our winter coats and shoes (of course they have a “no shoes” policy) in silence. The host broke the silence and asked: “was there a lot of traffic?”

The tea shop was an oasis in the middle of New York City. Moments before (exactly thirteen minutes before) we sidestepped a dead rat as we rushed past twenty-somethings on their nth first date. Brooklyn on a Friday night feels like a summer vacation on the beach. It’s alive and bustling like every book describes. Entering this tea shop felt like walking into the sea and taking the deepest inhale before diving underwater. Every corner was carefully curated with exquisitely crafted objects. Everyone seemed to agree on a dress code that I can only describe as modern tunics? Different types of wool-like fabrics draped around their shoulders. Comfortable chic. Concrete walls juxtaposed against immaculately constructed wooden furniture illuminated by simple and subtle light. It was a space that demanded attention in every corner.

In case you’re wondering, a tea ceremony has very little in common with wine tasting. Nobody goes around explaining the origins of tea. In fact, nobody talked at all. It was wonderful! (Now that I think about it, that’s probably one of the things that I enjoyed the most out of Sleep No More. I found that play to be really transcendent and never could put my finger on why (again, I’m not into theater) but maybe it’s brilliance is that it asked it’s audience to exist in a world where everything is possible except talking.)

The ceremony consisted of four attendees sitting in a semi-circle on the floor while our hosts repeated two things endlessly:

1. Kristina poured tea into handmade bowls meticulously laid out around the semi-circle, then invited us to drink out of them with a subtle hand gesture and a smile; and

2. Laura softly caressed a gong which made beautifully harmonious and incoherent sounds

This repeated over and over again for 90 minutes. There are many ways I enjoy spending my Friday nights, but I didn’t think that sitting in silence with a few strangers repeating this ritual over and over again would be one of them. Yet, by the fourth or fifth slurp of tea, the ceremony turned into a meditation on intentionality and slowing down that I found incredibly profound.

Photo by Kristina Clark.

Between each pour, I found myself lost in thought. That moment existed in such stark contrast with the rest of life: everything moved slower and more methodically; every object in the room seemed to be carefully crafted from a single piece of wood; every action seemed intentional and deliberate.

I couldn’t help but wonder when the illusion breaks. Do you think after the ceremony ends, they grab the handmade bowls and wooden utensils and stack them in a plastic container from The Container Store? Does the tea artist take an Uber home and finishes her night watching an episode of Survivor and ordering takeout? Of course, they get on Twitter and doomscroll their way through The Latest Outrage, right? Is it possible to live in New York City and ignore the machine? Can we carve out a moment to pause, sit still, and slurp tea in silence with strangers on a Friday night?

Anyway, I won’t continue to bore you with my take on why tea ceremonies are cool (those who are into tea can do that much better than I can), but I did walk away with renewed appreciation for the value of slowness and repetition.

I spend every day pursuing speed and avoiding redundancy. Everything in Design is centered around efficiency; removing friction. We aspire to create experiences were people can accomplish a goal quickly and effortlessly. “Good design is as little design as possible” they say. “Get out of the way and let people do the thing!” Yet I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if we designed software like we submit to tea ceremonies.

You see, everything about the ceremony was incredibly inconvenient and riddled with friction. Kristina could’ve poured hot water into a mug and dropped a tea bag in ten seconds. Instead she took ten minutes to slowly and intentionally prepare each serving (is that the proper term?) like it was made of origami. Laura could’ve used a DAW to program meditative sounds with a couple clicks. Instead, she carried a gong three quarters her size from the Upper West Side to Williamsburg so that four strangers could vibrate alongside her for 90 minutes. And that’s exactly what made it special! The willing resistance to moving fast and commitment to sitting still, in silence, repeating the same thing over and over again.

The repetition forced us to let go and surrender to the ritual itself, removing our inner monologue and sense of momentum. “For a moment there, I realized there was nowhere else I’d rather be” said Kristina after the ceremony ended. I can’t think of a more noble pursuit than the momentary divorce from all ambition for the benefit of joy and gratitude.

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It seems like I’m on a kick to justify my laziness lately. I recently wrote about the perfect time waster and promoted Jenny Odell’s How To Do Nothing on The Optimal Path podcast. But, in all honesty, I couldn’t advice you to “slow down and do nothing” without committing myself as an staunch hypocrite.

I routinely take pride on my ability to do things quickly. In the time it takes most people to plan and execute one thing perfectly, I’ve usually done ten things mediocrely. My belief is simple: great comes after good, good comes after bad, and bad comes after nothing. Or: the only way to get to something great is after many bad attempts. So I lean into doing as much and as quickly as possible.

I suspect this reverence to sitting still comes from my curiosity for the unnatural, rooted on a desire that I can, despite all opposing evidence, change who I am. To find satisfaction in doing nothing would mean a complete metamorphosis. Like a butterfly, I could finally dispose of my caterpillar carcass. That’s the tragedy of it all: even doing nothing is a type of doing for me. The evolution from a doer to a being is another thing I want to do.