One day in August 2022, on a freeway service area along the A1O, Mrs PHYS sits under a tree in search of a little coolness. In the distance, the whistling of vehicles reminds him (professional deformation) that friction is the main obstacle to the movement of objects in motion. “All that energy used to overcome the friction of the air, what a shame” she thinks. But on the other hand, no choice, the laws of physics are stubborn… We could just reduce our speed because the phenomenon is not linear and each km/h more has a huge impact on consumption. More widely, two years before the Paris Games, she thinks that the Olympic motto “Faster – Higher – Stronger” should be concluded by “More Energy”. Too few people around her are aware of this…

Plunged in her thoughts, she does not see Mr. PHYL who has just sat down next to her, also fleeing the sun which is decidedly too intense in this month of August. A brief, tense smile crossed his face as he thought of Diogenes in his barrel. No doubt that in this summer of 2022, he would not have accepted the shadow that the silhouette of Alexander the Great gave him. Looking around, he thought to himself that he really hated the highway and even more so in August. But he was in a hurry to get to the Vendée, so he let himself be tempted by these double tracks and their promise of speed. He, Mr. PHYL, admirer of Milan Kundera, he who enjoyed reading La Lenteur, has just fallen into the trap he promised himself to avoid. He no longer smiles but grimaces when this sentence comes back to his mind: “When things happen too fast, nobody can be sure of anything, not even of himself. This is the last time for him…

The tree is big enough to offer shelter to Mrs. PSY. She thought she could distance herself from her clients and her practice, but here, in the middle of this anthill, she feels that at any moment a session will start. The only thing missing is a deck chair… A capacity developed over the years, she feels deep inside her that excitement that guides the crowd. The pleasure of the vacations is at the origin of it, but strangely enough, while in his consultations, the “need to slow down” is very often expressed, the vacations, or at least the beginning of the vacations, generally results in a race against time. There are some rare families for whom time is not counted but for the others, it is clear that the break is an imposed parenthesis without pleasure before taking the road again as soon as possible. Strange human nature which aspires to slowness but which in parallel runs after time. As if the journey had no more charm. As if only the end mattered…

The tree that listened to them could not hold back its leaves. These yellowed by the heat and the drought could not wait for the autumn before joining the ground. If he could not make it rain, he sprinkled it on the three thinkers. It had taken him years to patiently reach his beautiful adult size. He had pumped into the ground and into the air what had been made available to him. Years of abundance had allowed for rapid growth. The others, less favourable, had resulted in a more moderate growth. But he would grow, at the rhythm of nature, accepting the limits, knowing that he would nevertheless be a beautiful tree and he would enjoy every moment, remembering that from the seed to the log, only the path counts…

If Albert Einstein doesn’t like it, speed doesn’t condense time…but it does reduce our experiences.