Time in a Bubble

My sibling used to complain that my essays were too long. My response has always been the same: Guilty as charged! 😅

But this quote from the ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras made me reconsider the whole question of length:

“Do not say a little in many words but a great deal in a few.”

It sounds simple enough: practice brevity. Say more with fewer words. Don’t waste the reader’s time. But I am not satisfied with such a simplistic interpretation.

If I followed it literally, I might have missed Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Martin Luther King Jr.‘s I Have a Dream, Churchill’s wartime speeches, and countless other works whose power cannot be measured by word count.

Whenever I encounter a quotation, I ask: What did the person really want to say?

With Pythagoras, that question takes me back to my mechanical engineering years.

I first encountered the Pythagorean theorem not as philosophy, but as a practical tool. A geometric relationship that might require pages of explanation could be reduced to: a² + b² = c²

There it was. Not merely brevity but precision.

The equation didn’t make geometry less complex. It captured the underlying relationship so efficiently that the complexity became understandable—and useful.

Years later, my curiosity took me somewhere quite different: nature.

I became fascinated by the symmetry and patterns found in plants especially flowers. The Fibonacci spiral especially intrigued me. Its layered progression seemed almost impossibly precise, yet wonderfully simple.

I could have stopped there and simply said, “God did it.” But that would have ended the inquiry. I believe wonder should provoke questions, not silence them.

If something in nature is astonishing, why not use the mind we have been given to explore how it works?

Wonder gives us the question. Thinking allows us to pursue it. That distinction matters in today’s world.

We have answers available almost instantly. Ask the internet a question and something will answer before we have had enough time to formulate a second question.

The answer may be correct, could even be may be incomplete. It may be distorted and worse, it maybe disinformation and we often swallow it anyway.

Why? Because we are in a hurry.

We have become accustomed to shorter videos, shorter posts, shorter headlines and shorter attention spans. Even the apparent length of an essay can influence whether we decide it is worth reading.

Too long? Swipe.

But length is not the same thing as substance

A short piece can say almost nothing. A long piece can contain an idea worth carrying for the rest of your life.

Perhaps our mistake is not that we prefer brevity. Perhaps it is that we judge the value of an idea before giving ourselves enough time to encounter it.

That brings Pythagoras into the modern world. His statement may not really be telling us to use fewer words. It may be telling us to eliminate unnecessary words while preserving the essential thought.

There is a profound difference. A great speech may be long because it is building something: an argument, a rhythm, an emotional crescendo, a moral vision.

Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” was brief because he distilled an enormous idea into remarkably concentrated language. King’s “I Have a Dream” was different. Its repetition was not waste. It was architecture. The words accumulated force.

The issue, then, is not length. It is density of thought. And perhaps that is where Pythagoras and nature meet.

A mathematical relationship can produce an elegant equation. Simple patterns can produce extraordinary complexity in nature. A speech can use hundreds of words to carry a single profound idea. The common denominator is not brevity. It is order.

There is another ancient voice worth inviting into this conversation: Lao Tzu, who warned against haste. His warning seems almost prophetic today. We rush to conclusions. We rush to judgment. We rush to consume information. We rush to respond before understanding what we have read.

And sometimes we mistake speed for intelligence. The internet doesn’t merely give us information quickly. It gives us answers before we have learned how to question them.

Disinformation doesn’t always have to defeat the truth. Sometimes it only has to arrive first.

Nature operates on an entirely different clock. A spiral does not hurry. Nor does a tree rush its growth. Understanding doesn’t either. It takes observation, questioning, doubt—and the willingness to sit with an idea long enough to discover that the first answer may not be the best one.

Perhaps that is what we are losing in this age of instant information—not information itself, but the patience required to make sense of it. We have become extraordinarily good at finding answers and less comfortable with questions. And questions are where thinking begins.

So perhaps my sibling was right. My essays are long. Guilty as charged. But I am not particularly interested in counting words. I am interested in finding the idea hiding underneath them. And sometimes that idea can be expressed in a single equation. Sometimes it requires a speech or even an essay.

And sometimes, like the patterns I see in nature, it requires us to slow down long enough to notice what was there all along. Perhaps Pythagoras was not asking us to say less. Maybe he was asking us to think more carefully about what deserves to be said.

And perhaps Lao Tzu was reminding us that some things cannot be understood in a hurry.

Which brings me to an old wine commercial whose wisdom has stayed with me:

“We don’t serve wine until it’s time.”

What a wonderful metaphor for thought. Some ideas need to ferment. Some questions need to breathe. Some understanding needs time.

And perhaps wisdom, like good wine, isn’t something we should consume instantly.

We should let it mature before deciding whether it is worth drinking.