A flame flickers slow—
Not in haste, nor in delay,
Yet it sears the pan.
There was an old cook at a small izakaya in Morioka, tucked away in the quiet streets where the lanterns cast long shadows on the stone-paved alleys. The kind of place you could pass by a hundred times without noticing, until one night, the scent of charcoal and soy sauce pulled you in.
He had been there for years. Maybe decades. Standing behind the counter, his presence as much a part of the place as the worn wooden beams and the smoke curling from the grill.
I watched him work one evening, the glow of the open flame lighting his face in soft, flickering gold. He moved with the ease of someone who had nothing to prove, nothing to rush toward. Every gesture was quiet, unhurried—placing fish on the heat, turning skewers with a single practiced flick, slicing vegetables with steady, careful strokes.
The younger cooks in the back worked frantically, their movements sharp, their motions loud, the clatter of knives and pans filling the space. They chopped too quickly, flipped too soon, plated too fast. In their eagerness, they made mistakes—fixable, but mistakes nonetheless.
The old cook never said a word.
He didn’t need to.
Because in the end, his plates left the counter first. Not because he was faster, but because he was smoother. Because slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.
The Illusion of Speed
Most people think speed is about moving quickly. But real speed—effective speed—is about moving well.
- A skilled cook doesn’t rush to finish a dish; he finishes it in one continuous flow.
- A sword master doesn’t swing wildly; he cuts only once, because once is enough.
- A craftsman doesn’t chisel recklessly; he moves with precision, wasting nothing.
Inexperienced hands mistake motion for progress. But motion without purpose is wasted energy.
The old cook never rushed because he had eliminated everything unnecessary.
No wasted steps.
No extra movements.
No hesitation.
Every action had weight. And that’s why he was the fastest man in the room.
Mastery is not about perfection, but about flow—about accepting imperfection, embracing rhythm, moving in harmony with time instead of resisting it.
A meal cooked too fast lacks depth.
A knife swung too soon misses the mark.
A life lived in constant hurry leaves no room to be fully present.
The old cook understood this. His food tasted better, not because he tried harder, but because he trusted the process.
And that is the real secret:
Patience is not delay. It is alignment.
Lessons in Smoothness
- Speed is not rushing. It is moving with efficiency.
- Haste creates mistakes. Smoothness eliminates them.
- The fastest people in the world are the ones who waste nothing.
- Mastery is not about speed. It is about rhythm.
- Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.
By the time I left the izakaya that night, the younger cooks were still working, still clattering, still rushing. The old man was cleaning his station, moving with the same steady rhythm as before, wiping the counter, rinsing his knife, pouring himself a small cup of sake.
Outside, the lanterns flickered against the night sky. The city was quiet, the streets empty. I walked slowly, letting the cold air settle in my lungs, thinking about the way his hands moved, the way the fire never seemed to rush, the way time stretched for those who knew how to move with it.
And I wondered how many years it had taken him to learn that stillness was never the absence of movement—
But the mastery of it.
life 
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