When the gaze of African elders fell on a turbulent distance, they rallied their people by urging them to slow down. I have often quoted them in my talks by saying, ‘the times are urgent, let us slow down’. It is perhaps crucial to note that ‘slowing down’ isn’t so much a function of speed, as it is a function of awareness. The point with ‘slowing down’ (and why this is important in our times) is taking the less obvious path – and not merely about reducing how fast we do the things we do (though this is often implied). Slowing down invites us into a keen awareness of alliances, of affinities and agencies that press so close to us that it might be said that we share the same skin. Slowing down is, more importantly, a repudiation of the idea that ‘we’ have agency – or that anyone is invested with agency, will or foresight. It is a worrying of the boundaries of ‘we’ – a stretching of what it means. It is the acknowledgement that agency is always an entanglement with forces beyond our wildest reckoning, and it is when we divest ourselves of the hubris of sole intentionality that we access ‘resources’ stronger than volition, nobler than ideology, and finer than outcomes.