Is it me or does our world keep getting faster? Some people are dashing their way through life, anxious to get on to the next thing on their agendas. And this includes tasks which are recreational in focus. Certainly I did this as a teacher with so many to be graded papers that it spoiled the weekend if I wasn’t enjoying the read.
Even in the mid-Hudson valley drivers of trucks and sports cars are rushing to get ahead of others by changing lanes or cutting in front of more reasonable travelers. They pretty much have to do that in the city, but up here it’s less clear. Perhaps they’re angry with their lives, perhaps ‘driven by success.’
‘Text and drive’ has become a modern have to. If you were a business person, it used to be that calls would come into an office, but then you’d leave the office and the calls would stop. Families stay in touch and someone might call to convey a change of plans or that they’re held up in traffic and expect to arrive later than previously assumed, but most of the time no clarification would be necessary. So where are we headed with this? And why? Is this “productivity?” or just filling the time with rush? Are you addicted to cell phoning? I’m told my sentences are too long. As my cousin put it, “Who has the time to read them when you go on like that?”
And then there are all those communications with people who want to sell you stuff you haven’t ordered, points of view you didn’t ask for, and numbers you never called. And gifts everyone seems to want and thinks you should provide, even for persons you know made a good salary, and then of course there are the crooks. Modern Times Charlie Chaplin called it. But that was long ago.
Some people live in many places. The snow birds and the wealthy. It’s fun to vary the scenery, but if you don’t have a private jet or a rural airport it comes with hurry up and wait built in.
On the education front a similar rush is required with decisions students and their parents are asked to make immediately. What is your major? Where does that major go to school? How many college credits will you accumulate and how much “time” will that actually save you? Where will you really be able to get an internship and thereby perhaps a job? For gosh sakes hurry up; you have only 50 more years to make money.
In my older days such as now, a sort of peace has emerged, a calm that garden walks promote and yogic stretching and allowing the morning to sponsor a new topic for the blog. I may not know where these are going yet, but I let them emerge in time.
There is something splendid in not having to be somewhere, even if I still get up as though I had an 8am class.
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