Fast cars, high speed broadband, speed dial, express dry cleaning, fast food, fast-tracking, speed dating and accelerated learning are just a few examples of modern living where all I see are more and more people becoming more and more disconnected from themselves.
Speed itself, is a label for a drug, Amphetamines, stimulating the nervous system, accelerating the heartbeat, and sparking a fast-talking, restless feeling of ill perceived excitement and energy. Or as James Gleick in his book 'Faster' so eloquently put it...' Athletes have used amphetamines as agents of literal speed (in vain); others have used them as dangerous antidotes to plain boredom. Meanwhile, narcotics offer a rush. And the last socially acceptable mood-altering drug in the puritanical 1990s, with alcohol and nicotine on the wane, turned out to be caffeine. Caffeine, we now know, can bring with it, in sufficient quantity, restlessness, nervousness, excitement, insomnia, flushed face, diuresis, gastrointestinal disturbance, muscle twitching, rambling flow of thought and speech, tachycardia or cardiac arrhythmia, periods of inexhaustibly, psycho-motor agitation, and several other of the well-known conditions of our accelerated times. But don't worry-chew another chocolate-covered dark roast bean as you swing by a "Coffee a Go Go" Web site, which croons: "Caffeine, your friend and mine! Near and dear to our hearts, not to mention very tight with our synaptic impulses." These are additives to our engines.'
It is as though everyone is too tired to keep running but too scared to stop. The biggest difference I've noticed over the last twenty years both on a personal and professional level is the breakdown of real communication, and the loss of an understanding of the self. So many clients say to me that they don't have time to meditate and yet forget that everyday activities used to offer opportunities for mindfulness and contemplation (making tea, hanging out the washing, writing a letter, making love.)
These days with the explosion of 'fast' communication via, mobiles and the Internet we have lost our windows of opportunity throughout the day to check-in with our-self. I talked about the tea ceremony a couple of weeks back and what a perfect example of an everyday activity done with mindfulness, integrity, meditation and calm. compare that to the guy shouting down his mobile, fishing for change in his pocket as he pays for his double espresso 'to go' at Starbucks sloshing it back on the run. Communicating through writing - real kinesthetic holding the pen, mindful writing is also another lost meditation. Years ago someone would sit somewhere peaceful pen dipped in ink ready to glide across the page their considered and gathered thoughts. Has anyone reading this seen a modern day love letter that can match the outpourings of latter day love. I haven't as it's too easy to gabble out a puke of garbled thought whilst multi-tasking and entertaining a an over-stimulated mind.
Lovemaking used to be exactly that, making love, a meditation on connecting. These days more often than not it's a frenzied 'quickie' with clothes half on. No time for foreplay so aided by the accelerators of rabbits, viagra and porn. By the way, I'm not judging, everything in its singe context has relevance and importance, it's just worth checking how much you are dining out on the smorgasbord of speed???
Ever since Tom Cruise high fived Goose with his maxim of 'I feel the need, the need for speed,' and Michael Douglas fawned over greed (greed is good), we have careened through life and left our understanding of our-self, and ability for mindfulness, back on the side of the road of a slower time.
What is beautiful though is that we can right here, right now reclaim our time, play around with living in the moment. Starting with the little things each day can make a huge difference. Making a meal once a day and concentrating on every aspect of that meal and nothing else - finely shaving that clove of garlic. Or listening, genuinely listening to someone tell you how their day has been, or reading just one page of a book and absorbing every word, or sitting down and handwriting a letter - one you can't spellcheck and cut and paste after... making it count.We used to have a saying in martial arts which I used to pass on to my students - ONENESS WITH TSUKI. It literally means being at one with your punch, all intent and energy focused on that punch. If we could couple that with the 'state of no-mind' where we held onto no thoughts that was perfect technique and execution - the same way that if all intent and focus was placed on finely shaving the garlic, and emptying the mind whilst doing so it would be a way of re-connecting with the self.
Sometimes it's good to go to the opposite end of the scale... We have been rushing through our hectic lives, so exagerating the slow down is a great way of then being able to return to balance. Sometimes I walk barefoot in the garden as a Tai Chi walk where each step takes about thirty seconds - It's amazing how much positive shift goes on by this simplest of exercises.
On a final note it's worth recognising why we go so fast and what we maybe too fearful of confronting within ourselves by not allowing ourselves to stop... Bono put it so well in the lyrics of his song running to stand still, where if we keep running to the detriment of mindfulness, then we end up artificially numbing the pain and slowing ourselves down destructively...
And so she woke up Woke up from where she was Lying still Said I gotta do something About where we're going...Step on a steam train Step out of the driving rain, maybe Run from the darkness in the night ...She runs through the streets With her eyes painted red Under black belly of cloud in the rain... She is raging She is raging And the storm blows up in her eyes She will... Suffer the needle chill She's running to stand... Still.
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