What is this languor that penetrates my heart?

Abstract

From a more poetic than a strictly anthropological image, the
author focuses the theme of slowness on the origin of movement
of the large prehistoric animals. A first result of this is
patience, a notion that is closely linked to that of slowness
and very soon becomes moral. A notion of rhythm is set and
that movement would have been natural for the predecessors
of humans. Of course, not at that moment nor when slowness
is seen as typical of certain movements can it be understood
if it is not in relation to speed. From this interplay, that sketch of
the concept, that of rhythm, takes shape and is gradually
imposed until it governs not only all life, individual and social,
but also until it makes all passing of time intelligible.