Wit Depends on Dilatory Time

Where are we running to? What are we running from? Why am I rushing headlong to burn out each sacred day?

I wind up the clock till there is nothing left to turn or see or feel or do or hear or need or know or be.

When I return to Toronto after a week or more away, not matter where I go (unless it is another time-whore like London, New York, Delhi, Tokyo, LA, Bangkok, Beijing, Chicago, Mumbai, Sydney, etc.) I am immediately struck by two things. The complete total absence of any natural rhythm in the place i have stepped into and the pull to cease being myself.

If I have been away to rural area for over three weeks, I find that i have to almost quite literally kick my mind body into gear, jolt myself into the self pace of the race that chases dreams away.

Before too long, I am entrained, I am hustling, hassling, pushing so hard that I am can take reality itself, passing my own life by.

When I first enter a new room, relationship, town or country, I am struck by how much I see. My eye is slow, my mind is open, it takes so much more in - in less time. Take this challenge, tomorrow. Reduce your driving speed by 10mph. Let the impatience subside and then you will notice something. You will discover the same routine route you take every day, the same road, houses, tree's and grassy paths with new eyes. You will arrive home no more than five or ten minutes later than usual, but you will be unusual, special, refreshed.

What are we afraid of? What are we running from? What will happen if we don't make it, today? What if we don't make that promotion or close that deal? What are we trying to accumulate all this paper wealth for anyway? What will it give us? Peace of mind? A place to rest? Time off?

How much is enough? How much money do I need to pile up, to give myself permission to get on with my own life? Who am I begging this permission from?

Once I have completed the payments on the economic Tower of Babel, I will still only need three square meals a day, a tall glass of water and a narrow space to lay my head down at night. Beyond this, all I need is time spend my love with the people who matter. So what if i can eat at a better cafeteria! How long does it take to get bored with something that didn't not matter in the first place?

After all this crazy running around for nothing, will I ever catch myself Will I even be recognize or know how to enjoy the silence, the stillness and the people I am working so hard for? I am killing myself and all my relationships, whilst my loved ones are still alive. I am destroying my life to make money so I can buy something that is not for sale. Killing myself to earn what I already possess. The truth is that longer and faster I run, the further I push it from my reach.

The more I rush the less hours I have in the day. When I 'take five' to sit back and reflect, the day opens up like a precious gift. Einstein's theory of relativity needs no mathematical proof. The more time saving devices I invest the busier I get. I will use the e-mail because i don't have time for a real conversation, so I spent more time getting a head full of junk mail.

Fear of boredom is the biggest driver of our economy. If I am not working, being entertained, serving or being served - then I might be found in my cozy rented jail cell - doing time (sitting in the rush hour traffic jam).

All this rushing pays off, with exhaustion, ulcers, headaches and needless arguments. After I have overdosed on myself, I have to hurry to avoid the rush to get to my personal retreat - my cottage in the country or by the sea. Here I can re-absorbed myself back into a natural cycle.

The true currency of flow is to be found in nature, things are slow and then there are bursts of speed, then slow and then burst. These cycles are all connected, the slow growth of the a tree or flower, that takes a very long time to grow, but then the blossom it seems to arrive over night. The clouds gather slowly before they burst down onto the ground.

Plutarch wrote: "Courage stands halfway between cowardice and rashness, one of which is a lack, the other an excess of courage". Perhaps we are so consumed proving to ourselves and our neigbours just how heroic we are that we have no time to pay attention to the real needs on the planet. Being out of time is trendy otherwise why would we suffocate ourselves with such nonsense? Being being late and rushed for time is chic. It is the crown that time paupers use to celebrate their importance to the world.

A Director of Sales was in his office. His legs stretched out on the table, head flopped back, eyes fixed on the ceiling. I walked by and then stepped back, worried, whether he was alright? I made a futile pretend coughing sound - "Mark - are you OK?" - he looked at me and smiled. "Oh yes, how's it going Kashmir?", i replied without thinking, "Fine, sorry to disturb your rest".

Mark smiled as he sat up, "I wasn't resting man, I was thinking". I love working with sales people, they are (at least the best of them are) great students of the human condition and always at the ready with a quip or come back line. I did not believe Mark. I thought to myself, he is telling exactly what he thinks I need to hear. So I asked him, "thinking about what...? " Mark told me to come in and sit down. He then painted a picture of his industry, his customers, his business and all the factors that need to be addressed, that ten of his peers could not conjure if they had ten days and ten consultants to prop them up. He told me what he was struggling with. The limitations in the way resources were being deployed. The insights from the competition and customers that were being ignored. As he got into issues, causes, barriers and then into solutions, practical steps that needed to be taken, i steadily felt very small. I wondered why I had been too busy to see what this man saw, as it was all so obvious once he laid it out. Then I wondered, why isn't this man running this company? The answer rushed b the office door quite literally, not five minutes later.

Meditation, sleep and prayer are not resting, they are a quiet way of resting life back from the jaws of time poverty. Renewal. Regeneration. Revival. Return to the present moment where reality resides. Filling up my hours does not fulfill me. It does the exact opposite. It robs me of any opportunity to discover, meet, greet and fall in love with the wisdom God has implanted in me and the sheer beauty that surrounds me. When an hour is empty, the minute I am no longer defined by time, the moment I become timeless, that is when the palm opens and the gift of life is revealed. That is when the healing begins.

"How poor are they that have not patience!
What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
Thou know'st we work by wit, and not by witchcraft;
And wit depends on dilatory time."
Othello - (Act II, Scene III)