It’s simple.

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development goals clearly outline seventeen objectives for a properly developed society, and many of these slow cities particularly target the goal of “making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.” When I was reflecting on life since returning stateside after my summer of good eating and meaningfully spent time, I realized that if I slowed down, I would be left behind. Although “slow living” is cultural, it’s something that can extend beyond borders, but requires structural change. We are unable to live this slow life because of America’s engrained values. Structural changes like the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the Citta Slow movement get us a step closer to putting our well-being, culture, and planet above corporations and capital. Until we see this systemic change, the most forward action is to live more intentionally – starting with the food we eat.

“I think therefore I am” makes the assumption that to have thoughts, any thoughts, is the premise on which we exist. Our entire being consumed whole by French philosopher Rene Descartes’ quick catchphrase. I think… and therefore I now have a purpose, breath, voice to take up space on this Earth. I think about my desires with a partner or whether or not God exists or how to fold butter into flour and suddenly I am very alive and very here not there and ready to eat my portion of the universal time sliced for me. This five word slogan, careful to tread on the very dense idea that it does not take much and yet takes everything for us to exist. “I am”. You are. We will be or have been… and it gets much worse than this.

Barbara Kruger is an artist from New Jersey, close enough to the big city to consider her a tortured New Yorker. Suffocated- along with everyone else who overpopulates that little corner of the world. Kruger, like a true graphic design student, felt her work lacked meaning in the early 1970s and took a hiatus completely from 1976 to 1977. When she returned to the art realm, she fell in lust with Future Bold Italic and got to the core of her work. She began using pronouns like “you” and “I” because it “cuts through the grease” (Kruger). The grease being the fat that surrounds us when we settle into a new, successful job or find a group of posh friends or fall in love with a certain pair of shoes. Kruger and her pronouns come for that soft, meaty material and get down to the grit: “I shop therefore I am.”