Fast – Illustration Friday

The topic for Illustration Friday was 'fast'. I've been away and so I am cheating, using wordle and playing with words to illustrate the fact that fast has so many meanings and synonyms, is this just a product of our ever accelerating lives I wonder? The speed with which we progress through life, telling ourselves we must tarry not, use less haste and more speed, whilst hastily flying around trying to complete nineteen tasks to the dozen. We gabble our words and gobble our food trying to fit one more act into time that goes by in a flash. If we are not quick we miss out on opportunities; but moving swiftly on, I feel my pulse becoming more rapid as tachycardia takes effect. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog and I try to express the hurried, spur-of-the-moment action required to rush to the rescue. As we thrash like speeding bullets, turbo torpedoes, down the motorway or information super highway, we expect everything to rocket along even dating is expected to be carried out at speed; a clear run, supersonic, rapido. Continuing to gallop along at such a pace may make us fast, but also furious.

Of course if we slow things down, it is possible to remember that fast also means the complete opposite. A dye which is fast does not run. Something which is fast can be stuck, held firmly like a limpet, never a speedy creature at the best of times. 'To fast' can also be the opposite of gobbling our food, resisting food altogether; strange thing the English language.

So the illustration at the top is all the fast words and the second one is what happens when you focus on the slow words. Which do you prefer?