To win going slowly

My life is pretty frantic right now and over the weekend I was reminded of a line from an old Clive James essay*: -

The secret of applying energy is to economise on effort — to win going as slowly as possible.

James has been a prolific and interesting broadcaster, critic and essayist for almost fifty years and there are few living people in the creative arts that I admire more. I am in awe of the breadth of his work. He has a bewildering range of passions (including the poetry of Shelley, F1 motor racing, all forms of television and the samba) and he writes with the same tremendous intelligence and sympathy on them all.

His prolificacy should be an inspiration for anyone trying to create a multidimensional life, surely one of the attractions of self-employment.

* The complete essay is on the Austrian F1 driver Niki Lauda. The quote I've lifted is from the final paragraph