The financial crisis - enough has been written on that, but there is no evidence that we have learn the right lessons.Â
Fast paced progress - quick returns, nearly no hard work, early-in-life comforts, too much dough that you know not what to do with... Where did all that lead us? - to a meltdown, burnout.
One minute is 60-seconds long, isn't it? Not for quite some time now, not in the worldâs obese, sprawling cities, not since we let technology rule our world. Days seem short, years speed by. And more often than not, by habit, or as a convenient excuse we shamelessly say 'I don't have time', when we actually mean 'Quality time? What's that?'Â Time and tide certainly wait for none, but why have we taken it on ourselves to drive time, as though, if we didnât, it might choose to slow down or stop? Children become adults before innocence has had enough of a chance to contribute to wholesome development, and young adults are millionaires before they know the value of a paisa.
Why do we insist on fast-forwarding into the future? Taking our kids along (sometimes letting them lead us) as we hurtle headlong into next year, next decade? No one seems to talk of leisure; actual 'free time' is still consumed by the likes of the Internet and the TV, and not by a good book, or by simply doing nothing while grey cells get a chance to refresh themselves. No suave urbanite writes good old letters, they prefer to mail, and of course you e-mail only those who have a Net-identity, and thatâs how you lose a dear but âslowâ friend from long ago.
What is wrong with slowing down - so that we age at a graceful pace, and let our kids be just kids for a good number of years? Can todayâs kids recollect a childhood when they grow old? A childhood when they learnt of life & living, friendship and Nature right from the source, and not by the process of feeding an underdeveloped mind through pixels? When it was Nature who provided all kinds of wonderful toys to play and learn, and not indifferent parents who amassed plastic soon-to-be junk? Iâd like to think that there really is a remnant of a generation who did have just such a slow childhood, and who have no regrets about that.
Just try to think of what Gen Y will remember a decade or two from now. That Y2K, the ipod and playstation, the Iraq fiasco and the world-wide agricultural crisis â are all part of ancient history? Very likely. C S Lewis may have said âThe Future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he isâ, but he spoke just before communications technologies, including the Net, the wireless services, and the entertainment electronics let the world come closer. And while they do that very well, they also seem to steadily weave a strangulating web that cunningly disables humankind even as they continue to be glorified as enabling wonders. Perhaps we are staunch followers of Kabir. âkal kare so Aaj kar, Aaj kare so Ab, Pal Mein Pralaya Hoyegi, Bahuri Karoge Kubâ? The pralaya too, will be man-made, and brought on too soon for our own good.
If and when you are convinced - and before it is too late - work out some of your own recipes for slowing down. One's personal, proven brakes is a weekend at home in a village, where the cable has not reached yet, the cell-phone picks up signals only at a certain West-Northwest corner, one can do without transportation, one can run down barefoot to the river-banks; sadly though, in a sense, all this actually means 'running away'.
We need to slow down in place, as is, and not have to seek out a place and a time to do that. Only when we slow down will Time have real meaning. To that end, we could try these other recipes, without cheating ourselves - Net-less weekends, car-less Mondays (take the bus), TV-less Tuesdays (TV-less evenings would be perfect), cell-phone-less Wednesdays, PC-less Thursdays, and Flight-less Fridays.
Suit yourself!
Now we know what progress can do, it's time we picked up the right lessons, and continue to 'hasten' slowly, somewhat like the proverbial tortoise. Perhaps that is its secret of contented longevity.
