When you get to the end of a long journey, for instance a long wilderness canoe trip, you see the beginning differently. When you get to the end of a major creative work, you see its purpose, its theme, differently. It is one of the great paradoxes of life that nothing is more valuable in achieving a great life, a great creative work, than time, and nothing is more important than moving slowly and thoughtfully.

If you rush through a canoe trip, you won’t see anything important. You won’t experience nature. You’ll experience frustration. If you rush through a creative work, for instance to get it off to the publisher or gallery, it will lack power. Life and work gain power through slowing down, listening carefully, and acting after careful reflection.

It took about five years to make the film The Man Who Planted Trees. Continuous work. There are about twenty thousand drawings in the film. Even the last film I did – The Mighty River – I worked for four years to make it closer to the message it should carry. I find it is fantastic to spend a long time writing a book or working on a piece of art. If you want a book to be something who really gives, who is a kind of gift to humanity, you should work on that a long time. Not just write and push it to the publisher.

Jean Giono took twenty-three years to write The Man Who Planted Trees. It ended up to be only seven pages of typewritten text. . . When you come to the end, when you see the beginning very different. You have to change many parts of the book. You make a kind of psychic work on your book or on your film. I think that is important. I think it is better to go less at speed, but think more over, and take more out, in order to make the thing more useful and positive.
  - Frédéric Back, animator, creator of the film The Man Who Planted Trees for which he received an Oscar.  Heron Dance interview.

By serving the work, rather than time, you elevate it to the spiritual realm.

If you don’t set your own rhythm, and have the discipline to follow it, the world imposes its rhythm on you. The rhythm of the culture around us is too fast, too frenetic, for the creation of thoughtful work. A rhythm that creates something unique and powerful and beautiful, evolves out of stillness.

• How would you describe your relationship to time?

• To what extent is the rhythm of your life a result of careful thought? Or is it imposed by the flow around you?

• Does the rhythm of your life grow out of a still point, a place of quiet reflection?

For more reflections on the role of time and rhythm in a well-lived life visit here.