We have been on the move for the last four days with another travel day about to start. Because of number of locks involved, it takes a long time to go a short distance. Yesterday was 19 miles in seven hours at an average speed of 2.7 knots or 3.1 mph—just about walking speed. Which is insanely slow for a machine that has 300 hp. Take away the locks, and we do just about 6 knots or 6.9 mph. Most of us can run faster.
In a culture that is bent on self destructing as quickly as possible, it takes an entirely different mindset to travel this way. One that is most decidedly not in much of a hurry. It is something that only people who are content to move gently through the world, catching the little things like a family of swans paddling along the shore or turtles sunning on a branch, can find satisfying. Even most boaters don't fit that description, churning through the water as fast as they possibly can, utterly clueless or completely unconcerned as to the wake they are leaving behind. Which, come to think of it, isn't a bad description of how many of our human family travel through their lives.
I will admit this is kind of an odd thought for someone who likes to go fast. I made a living flying jets, generally moving at somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 mph. Once, up in the flight levels with a monster tail wind, we were moving over the ground faster than the speed of sound. I still remember that flight. That is as fast as I have ever gone in relation to the surface of Mother Earth.
The fastest motorcycle I ever rode would do 168 mph. (Please don't ask how I, a retired street rider, know that.) Going fast just to go fast can be kind of fun. But I often wonder if, like a lot of things that are fun, making hurtling through life a way of life might not be the best way to enjoy a life. The wake that can be left behind is certainly not “best” for those who are often rocked by it. A Stoic Philosopher named Marcus Aurelius wrote, “Whenever you have trouble getting up in the morning remind yourself that you've been made by nature for the purpose of working with others, whereas even unthinking animals share sleeping. And it's our own natural purpose that is more fitting and more satisfying.” (Yes, he was also a Roman Emperor. I was as surprised as anyone that a Roman Emperor, absolute dictator and authoritarian, worked really hard at being one of the good guys. His book, the Meditations, should be required reading and the focus of some serious study by anyone who claims to be a "leader" of any kind.)
Anyway, slowing down a little, intending to leave a smaller wake behind—that seems to me to be a pretty good description of one way of working with others. If nothing else, it means not making other people's work any harder than it already is. It is a thought I kind of enjoy while putting along at our blazing 6 knots. It is fast enough.
Just for giggles...The earth, sun, and galaxy are all moving in relationship to each other, and the galaxy is moving in relationship to the Cosmic Background Radiation of the Big Bang. The rotation of the earth is about 1000 mph at the equator. The Earth around the sun is about 66,000 mph. The sun around the galaxy is about 483,000 mph. And the Galaxy away from the Cosmic Background Radiation of the Big Bang? That is about 1.3 million mph. All of this according to Andrew Fraknoi of the Foothill College & the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. All we can do is slow down a little in relation to the lives of the people around us, give them a little space, let them live their lives, and hope they let us live ours.
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