African National Congress stalwart Mac Maharaj spent 12 years in prison plotting with Nelson Mandela before becoming a minister in the first post-apartheid government.
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Reflecting on that time, Maharaj told the Financial Times time was the most valuable thing they had. In government, there was no time to talk. In prison Maharaj and Mandela discussed everything.
Smashing rocks under South Africa's diamond-bright sky, they argued about ideology, ethics, language, poetry, culture. They were able to listen, and persuade.
You get the feeling that in our 21st century democracies time scarcely exists, despite the gravity and complexity of the issues we face.
Here, members of parliament run all day trying to keep up with an impossible media cycle. Their staff are on coffee runs around the clock, ticking off engagement boxes, checking social media notifications.
Our politicians might have time to test ideas with focus groups, but not with each other.
They become experts at "thin-slicing" – a term Malcolm Gladwell popularised in his book Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking.
It means making snap decisions based on thin slices or narrow windows of information, rather than weighing things up and the experience of many others.
Every democracy has been challenged by the rise of social media. Facebook and its clones may be making us "infobese" – exposed to news and views, but still hungry and no wiser. Four Corners this week showed us our young people overly anxious about the future, supercharged by social media.
Social media still unsettles me, years on. All the more so when I hear it will one day determine the results of elections. It's apparently close to overtaking television and radio as the main means of reaching voters.
Here's what worries me.
1. It can shrink rather than enhance connections. By allowing us to view rather than take part in others' lives, it can turn us into voyeurs.
2. It makes everything seem as urgent as everything else, putting the sacred next to the profane on the same screen and asking us to look at the lot. It's true that advertising has always sat alongside news on radio, television and in print, but we used to know which was which.
3. It doesn't invite sustained thinking or action.
4. It seems to be eroding our capacity to be patient and civil with each other. Although it pretends to "engage", it often just entrenches tribalism.
What can we do about it? Here are some ideas:
1. Spend some of the time you would normally spend on social media volunteering and interacting with real people, face to face.
2. Use social media prompts about friends' birthdays to actually phone them.
3. If you have a Twitter account, follow people who have different views to you and be open to considering them, even if you know you won't agree.
4. From time to time go on a fast.
5. Go for more walks. It'll help you join the dots.
6. Go bush and camp.
7. Have more dinner parties where your mobile stays hidden.
In asking for slowness, real-world connections and reflection I am not suggesting doing nothing. I am suggesting getting more of what matters done.
