Monday, April 11, 2011
Tempus Fugits...When Maybe It Should Slow Down to a Walk
The more time I spend with myself alone at my writing desk thinking about what I want to write, and thinking of all the myriad things there are to write about, the more sensitive I've become to crowds of others and the tempo at which they travel through life. Most everyone seems to need to go very fast through the day, or at least they seem to need to go very fast from one place to another, from one activity to another. The world seems to be doing a lot of speeding.
Along with that has come a lot of crowding : crowding of activities so that there are more of them within the same 24-hour period, necessitating more speeding in order to get them all accomplished.
Now, I have always done the same. My life tempo has been rapid for as long as I can remember: i've spoken far too fast, my eating goes quickly, everything has been on speed-dial for as long as I can remember in my life. I have crowded more into one hour of time than most, and have striven to accomplish it all within even shorter times. My datebook pages have been black with appointments, and that used to make me feel good. A hurry is what I was always in. And now....well....now it's not.
And I have to say I like it better when it's not. Much much better.
Because now I can actually hear, see, smell, feel and touch the world around me as it goes by, and the discoveries I am making are endlessly entertaining. I try not to dwell on how much I've missed as I have sped through the years. Instead, I focus on what is in front of me right now, and pretend that my very skin is soaking in what is around me. I am trying to float on wings - slowly flapping wings - of discovery.
My observations of others' speeding can get - I must tell you - very judgmental, harsh and rigorous.
And as they speed by me, in their cars, pushing their grocery carts, plugged into their blue teeth and chatting to the air with a sense of great urgency like they are at a meeting that demands all they've got rather than buying baby food and yogurt, I feel sad that they are missing being where they are....and that I spent so much of my life doing the same: missing it all. Finally, missing the very process of living itself.
Sad, really.
I sat writing in a restaurant recently, and a striking older man, dressed all in black, with a dashing red scarf at his throat, and a spiffy black fedora angled rakishly on his grey head. A snappy white shirt accented where his black jacket met his chin. He was a Toulouse L'autrec walking. Only, he was quite insane. He sat alone at a table, and was talking feverishly to......air. No person was there, even though he was talking to one or two of them as if they most definitely were not only there but were deeply involved in a very important business meeting with him. I envisioned him at the head of some corporate Board meeting table, or at a weekly staff meeting, and he was the Boss. And now - retired and needed no longer - he had to still be the Boss of this imaginary meeting. And he knew I was watching him, so he performed his role as the involved busy man - listening to each proposal of his make-belive staff and discussing it earnestly with each employee - he did it all with care and precision and flair. When he caught me looking, his performance got even more pronounced and detailed and real for himself. I was utterly transfixed by this little drama. He could not stop to be where he actually was. He had to invent a world around him that mattered more than the simple one of being in a cafe, eating lunch. He could not be alone, so he invented a table full of people who needed him. He looked like all those people talking on Blue Tooth.......but this dear man was truly by himself. He WAS the crazy that so many people today only look like.
When I am sitting in traffic - on my way to the gym or somewhere else - and a driver feels like he or she absolutely must speed by me, crush right in front of me to get into my lane without signaling, honk at others in order to get where they want to be, all for the sake of a few feet of progress on their journey, I feel so bad for them, and want to ask them: " Will this get you to where you need to go any faster, really? Don't we all have to stop at the same stoplights?" And I love pulling up right next to them at a light, after all their drama to get ahead, making them realize that I was going much slower but ended up at the same place at the same time they did anyway!
I also try to remember that they may have a baby to deliver, or a heart to keep beating, or some other necessary emergency to get to, and that's why they are behaving as rudely and stupidly as they do ....maybe they have a good reason.
But usually, I would wager, they don't have any good reason at all, and that starts me wondering: why do they feel this horrible urgency to get ahead faster than all the others around them? Why did I FEEL IT all those years? What is HURRY? WHY IS THE HURRY?
Do we feel we can outrun Death? That if we run fast enough, Death will never be able to catch us and make us slow down for a final time? Why are we all in such a damned hurry all the time? Do we fear being alone for even the brief time we are alone in our car ,driving from one place to another? Do we bore ourselves that much? Are better things waiting at the hurried-to destination?
Hurry perplexes me now. Even though I used to be in one all the time. It feels familiar, like a tune I once feverishly danced to. But now, it's more and more a strange song I no longer wish to hear. I most certainly do not wish to dance to it.
If I'm going to exhaust myself, I'd rather do it keeping my body in good shape by rigorously working it out at my gym, so that my particular vehicle - my aging yet happy body - can continue to get me further and further down the road of life, at a luxuriously useful, pleasant pace. I may sweat a bit, but no horns will be blown....no horns will blast....I promise.
Along with that has come a lot of crowding : crowding of activities so that there are more of them within the same 24-hour period, necessitating more speeding in order to get them all accomplished.
Now, I have always done the same. My life tempo has been rapid for as long as I can remember: i've spoken far too fast, my eating goes quickly, everything has been on speed-dial for as long as I can remember in my life. I have crowded more into one hour of time than most, and have striven to accomplish it all within even shorter times. My datebook pages have been black with appointments, and that used to make me feel good. A hurry is what I was always in. And now....well....now it's not.
And I have to say I like it better when it's not. Much much better.
Because now I can actually hear, see, smell, feel and touch the world around me as it goes by, and the discoveries I am making are endlessly entertaining. I try not to dwell on how much I've missed as I have sped through the years. Instead, I focus on what is in front of me right now, and pretend that my very skin is soaking in what is around me. I am trying to float on wings - slowly flapping wings - of discovery.
My observations of others' speeding can get - I must tell you - very judgmental, harsh and rigorous.
And as they speed by me, in their cars, pushing their grocery carts, plugged into their blue teeth and chatting to the air with a sense of great urgency like they are at a meeting that demands all they've got rather than buying baby food and yogurt, I feel sad that they are missing being where they are....and that I spent so much of my life doing the same: missing it all. Finally, missing the very process of living itself.
Sad, really.
I sat writing in a restaurant recently, and a striking older man, dressed all in black, with a dashing red scarf at his throat, and a spiffy black fedora angled rakishly on his grey head. A snappy white shirt accented where his black jacket met his chin. He was a Toulouse L'autrec walking. Only, he was quite insane. He sat alone at a table, and was talking feverishly to......air. No person was there, even though he was talking to one or two of them as if they most definitely were not only there but were deeply involved in a very important business meeting with him. I envisioned him at the head of some corporate Board meeting table, or at a weekly staff meeting, and he was the Boss. And now - retired and needed no longer - he had to still be the Boss of this imaginary meeting. And he knew I was watching him, so he performed his role as the involved busy man - listening to each proposal of his make-belive staff and discussing it earnestly with each employee - he did it all with care and precision and flair. When he caught me looking, his performance got even more pronounced and detailed and real for himself. I was utterly transfixed by this little drama. He could not stop to be where he actually was. He had to invent a world around him that mattered more than the simple one of being in a cafe, eating lunch. He could not be alone, so he invented a table full of people who needed him. He looked like all those people talking on Blue Tooth.......but this dear man was truly by himself. He WAS the crazy that so many people today only look like.
When I am sitting in traffic - on my way to the gym or somewhere else - and a driver feels like he or she absolutely must speed by me, crush right in front of me to get into my lane without signaling, honk at others in order to get where they want to be, all for the sake of a few feet of progress on their journey, I feel so bad for them, and want to ask them: " Will this get you to where you need to go any faster, really? Don't we all have to stop at the same stoplights?" And I love pulling up right next to them at a light, after all their drama to get ahead, making them realize that I was going much slower but ended up at the same place at the same time they did anyway!
I also try to remember that they may have a baby to deliver, or a heart to keep beating, or some other necessary emergency to get to, and that's why they are behaving as rudely and stupidly as they do ....maybe they have a good reason.
But usually, I would wager, they don't have any good reason at all, and that starts me wondering: why do they feel this horrible urgency to get ahead faster than all the others around them? Why did I FEEL IT all those years? What is HURRY? WHY IS THE HURRY?
Do we feel we can outrun Death? That if we run fast enough, Death will never be able to catch us and make us slow down for a final time? Why are we all in such a damned hurry all the time? Do we fear being alone for even the brief time we are alone in our car ,driving from one place to another? Do we bore ourselves that much? Are better things waiting at the hurried-to destination?
Hurry perplexes me now. Even though I used to be in one all the time. It feels familiar, like a tune I once feverishly danced to. But now, it's more and more a strange song I no longer wish to hear. I most certainly do not wish to dance to it.
If I'm going to exhaust myself, I'd rather do it keeping my body in good shape by rigorously working it out at my gym, so that my particular vehicle - my aging yet happy body - can continue to get me further and further down the road of life, at a luxuriously useful, pleasant pace. I may sweat a bit, but no horns will be blown....no horns will blast....I promise.
Labels: SF life
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