Living on the edge

Aeroplanes, Cars, Bikes, Trains....all are getting faster and faster....covering greater distances in shorter times. Communication is getting faster....internet....mobile devices...television....news travels faster.....nations want to grow faster...more production...more revenues...individuals want to grow faster..career...money...."faster"....is the modern day mantra driving humanity and all its goals!

Thoughts are getting faster....quicker decisions...quicker....solutions....faster technology....faster production....

As a result faster global warming...animals...plants....birds and fishes also getting extinct faster! Glaciers melting down faster...rivers drying up faster...forest fires spreading faster...

Well now if mankind wants things to happen faster, why are we surprised if nature is cooperating!!!!

Humanity wants to cover more and more in the short life span....with everything happening faster...somewhere life too is getting shorter.....while statistics claim that life expectancy is increasing....we all feel the pressure that life is passing by too soon and time is passing by too fast.

Any guess why we are living on the edge? Driving ourselves towards extinction....

River

River's inspire me....though I have never lived near a River. For that matter being a city (Mumbai) born and brought up person, I haven't even seen or experienced a River at close. Herman Hesse (who is one of my favorite authors) in "Siddhartha" draws life's parallels from a River. Many writers and poets have been inspired by Rivers having repeatedly captured various moods of a River through prose and poetry.

What does the River teach us......that the true nature of life is to move on...move forward....and only forward...a River never goes back....it travels only in the forward direction... thats what makes it a River and different from a Lake/Pond/Sea/Ocean.

Each day I ask this question to myself...."Am I where I was yesterday or have I moved forward in life today?"

And trust me...in this simple question I find the solution/answers to all my life's challenges. Answering this simple question has made me more decisive and as a result more happy person. Not for me to get stuck in one place in life. Move forward decisively....Be it illness, health wealth issues, relationship or career....life is about moving forward. Imagine if the River one day feels that .."oh!!! this Mountain base is lovey and I am very comfortable here...so let me not move forward. I want to stay here till eternity because I am happy here....."

Old saying....stagnant water stinks. And so it is with life.....staying in one place...life gets into a rut. By staying in one place I dont necessarily mean physically living in one place. It could be staying stuck with a thought, a problem, a moment of anger or hatred.....Don't linger too long in happy moments...similarly don't carry on unhappiness for too long...move on......moving on.....like the flow of a River....joyful....clean and cool.....bubbly....fresh....surmounting and crossing all blocks and challenges happily....eagerly awaiting to meet its end....the Ocean. Not loosing its true character...the character of a River....That is life.

Moving forward each day......covering some distance!How much distance is covered does not matter...but moving forward matters.

Whom are we competing with?

Recession, global warming, terrorism, GDP.....so many things to talk about. Everything around us is moving too fast. Explosive growth, never seen before. Accelerated human evolution.

Is anyone really concerned about what impact all this is having on humanity? World leaders? Why is it that they don't discuss this issue? How are we as human beings coping with it all? How is this fast pace changing our mind and our body? Who is measuring this aspect of growth and development and its impact on society and mankind? What are the metrics or yard stick to measure how much have we grown as human beings? Or de-grown as compared to our ancestors who lived in lesser developed environment.

Whom are we competing with? God? Nature? Aliens? Time? Past civilizations? ..May be all..may be none....we could just competing with ourselves.

What is this hurry and why is this hurry? Cant we slow down? Why does GDP have to grow at 8% and why not 4 or 14 or 25 or 2....? Fixation with numbers! Not quality. These numbers are driving humanity crazy...

Yes there is an urgency...but the urgency is to slow down this crazy pace of life....quieten the minds! Shut out the noise and the clutter! Find the silence within.