So what's this been about so far?

What I have sought to do in these posts so far is to suggest that we can reconnect with things and feelings that are important in life by travelling slower.

But how does that add to the quality of life?

By allowing me to move at my own internal pace. A pace which allows me to feel grounded, but more than that, to feel in-tune with my own rhythm and sense of identity, to reconnect with the feelings I feel and to let the pieces settle in my mind and my life. It allows me to do those things which rightly, wrongly or simply differently I feel are important and of value to me.

I would like to expand on two points here: When I say they are important to me it is not meant in an egotistical sense. It is meant in a quality of life sense by allowing me to be a functioning spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically connecting being. With whom do I need to have this connection?

First, myself.
Secondly, my wife
Thirdly, the rest of my family
Fourth, my neighbours and local community
Fifthly, the wider world

. . . and in that order.

If I am not integrated within myself I will not be much use to anyone else. My wife comes next as she is without doubt the closest person to me by a long, long way. If that relationship was not settled then I would not be able to relate to the wider rings of my social circle, and so on.

The second point I would make is that it seems to me that there are four speeds at which people metaphorically move and live their lives these days:

The fastest speed is the speed of light: Their lives are lived at the push of a button, by the speed of electronic transmission (video, television and computer). They are living as fast as they can and often trying to speed up still faster.

The next slowest speed is the speed of sound: People reacting and responding to what they hear, to the latest gossip, to stories in the news, the speed of conversation. There is often not much depth here, it is often fleeting, circumstantial and commercial.

Many people seem to be operating somewhere between those two speeds. It is the speed of eveyday, commercial life. But of course life does not move that fast - not real, worthwhile and meaningful life at any rate. To get to that level, you need to stop living your life so fast and slow down.

The next slowest speed is the speed of apprehension, the speed of thought. This is the speed at which your mind can grasp and understand (to apprehend) the significance - the full significance - of what you and others are seeing and saying. It is the speed of your own natural thinking process.

The slowest speed is the speed of feeling or comprehension. This is the speed at which you can internalise, feel and come to terms with something. This is where you relate to others, think before you speak, the speed at which you can pause and consider. This is where you consider yourself and others.

What these levels look like in practice is hard to say. Only you really know for yourself. You can easily lie to yourself and others about how fast you are living. I think we are joined more by our humanity than our technology, that we are more alike than we are different. If you get a sense that someone is living their life too fast then you might be right as you would know how you would be if you moved, thought and reacted that fast.

One of the reasons that we don't like to admit that we are living too fast is that we tend to feel it is more exciting to live faster and boring to live slower. But one of the reasons we feel there is a lack of quality in our lives is precisely because none of the pieces have had a chance to settle, we stop feeling connected to who and what we are deep down and it is our unconscious mind and our body which is sending us signals that we are living our life too fast. When we feel this disconnection, when we wonder what it is all about, we need to take that time to reconnect, to live slower and stop living our lives so fast.