Slow and steady wins the race

The other day, I watched all 36 strangely compelling minutes of a carpet cleaning video (embedded below) in which a man cleans a Persian Carpet, taking it slow and steady.

I don’t recall how or why it came up, but the fact that the channel has more than 300,000 subscribers made me curious – they can’t all be looking for a local carpet cleaning service.

The carpet was crusted with dirt, possibly caused by a flood, or a sewer overflow as in some of their other videos.

And as I watched, I was struck by the patience and dedication it takes to clean an old carpet.

Slow and steady, because in this case, methodical wins the day.

And it’s easy to see that if you miss a bit, it will dissolve back into the carpet.

So, you go over and over it, again and again, and again and again, until it’s clean.

It looks a physically gruelling occupation, but given you can easily see you’re making a difference, quite satisfying.

Did it really take 36 minutes? Or did they add or remove some footage?

Or at least other than when it comes to the carpet drying anyway.

I wonder if, over time, you’d come to know what the colours of the carpet are under the muck.

And whether you’d know by the colour of the run off when it’s time to add the detergents.

Would you know the value of the carpet before you uncovered it?

About Persian Carpets

Of course, I was curious about a bunch of other things.

According to tappersia/com, Persian carpets are made in modern day Iran which encompasses the historic Persia.

You can get oriental carpets from Iraq, Pakistan, Tibet, Afghanistan, and Turkey, though these are not Persian.

They were originally hand crafted in silk by artisinal families, though they’re mostly mass produced in cottons and wools these days.

It takes an artisan about a year to produce a carpet – another case of slow and steady. Carpets with errors are generally worth less, though there are some people who take the errors as evidence of their handmade credentials.

Both the pattern and the colours contribute to the meaning of the carpet, and each carpet tells a story.

Slow and Steady

The main thing I learned takes me back to Aesop and the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare.

Slow and steady wins the race.

Both in making and cleaning carpets.

As well as finding a marriageable man.

I suppose, when you think about it, it works for a lot of other activities as well – act in haste and repent in leisure.

Or haste makes waste.


The Hare and the Tortoise, wood engraving from Melbourne Punch, vol. II, p. 167, 1856 via State Library Victoria

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