Show us the meaning of haste...

[Boromir88]

Now everything is about doing things quickly...Did you know you could "get great abs in under 12 minutes!" or "make amazing meals in 5 minutes!" or there are now even "drive-up divorce windows."

As we continue to get more and more technologically advanced, and more and more promised "time saving" devices come to the public, people continue to say they wish they had "more time on their hands." Are we really saving time for ourselves, or just giving up more time so we can complete more things, creating more trouble, and more stress for ourselves.

It seems like we have a paradox. Does wanting to get things done "fast" truly work, or is it a delusion? What about the quality doing things "fast?"

Professor Wood (in: Tolkien's Augustinian Understanding of Good and Evil in Tree of Tales Tolkien, Literature, and Theology) compared the Ring's invisibility to speed, and more about Tolkien's thoughts about getting things done quickly:

For Tolkien, all good and lasting things are created slowly and communally, with considerable time lapsing between their conception and their completion......Whether in the making of meals or books, in marriages or friendships, in mastering skills or developing convictions, all worthy things flourish and endure to the extent that they take shape gradually, without recourse to short-cuts, especially to the time-crunching means made available by our late-modern kind of invisibility -namely, technological instantaneity.

I was reminded of George Sayer's comments on how Lewis was able to finish Narnia with good speed, compared to Tolkien's much longer, time-consuming process:

His condemnation was so severe that one suspects he envied the speed with which Jack wrote and compared it with his own laborious method of composition.~Jack; A life of C.S. Lewis: Into Narnia

So, my question is "What is the meaning of haste"? Is wanting to get things done speedily necessarily evil? Afterall, it seemed like Gandalf was in need of haste much of the time, constantly running around Middle-earth. Theoden was in need of haste to get to Gondor.

However, time and again "speed" is connected with evil, or something bad. Morgoth, Sauron, Boromir, Saruman...etc are all hasty, rash, and impatient. And one of my favorite lines in all the books warns about taking short-cuts:

"Shortcuts make delays, but inns make longer ones."

Is wanting to get things done fast, in and of itself evil? Is it then inferior to anything that takes a long, and laborious process to form? Or is there another factor involved, that puts a negative connotation behind being "hasty?"