If you have ever wondered where these extra posts come from, the ones about something other than my training, I just figured that out myself. When I awake in the morning, my brain goes into high gear hours before my body does. It begins to bounce from subject to subject like a pin ball in a machine played by a really good fourteen-year old boy. Sometimes it falls into a slot and stays there. That happened this morning. For some reason, my consciousness landed on speed dating.
On what?
Speed dating. It's something I saw on the local news one time. I watched with a mixture of interest and horror as men moved from table to table to "date" a woman for a few minutes. I think it is set up with a time limit. Someone rings a bell and then the men move to the next table to date a new woman. After ten or twelve "dates," the thing is over. Then men submit a list of women they want to date for real. The women do the same thing. If there is a match, the organizers hook the two up.
So what is tarry worthy about this for my feeble brain? Well, it struck me a oddly symbolic or emblematic of our society at large. We are addicted to speed. We want, expect, demand everything fast, now, yesterday. Recall that TV advertisement on structured settlements. "It's my money and I want it NOW!"
Think about it, we have drive through windows at fast-food restaurants, channel changers for our TVs that have done wonders for our attention spans, car washes, convenience stores, self check out stations, and cleaners that get our clothes back in three days. Not only that, but we have instant grits, instant coffee, instant mashed potatoes, and instant oat meal, and who knows what all because I am not even a cook. All of this to help us speed along on the highway of life. We order things off the internet in seconds, and are always looking to save time. Where does it all end?
After thinking about this topic for a second or two (see what I did there?), I came up with the idea that some things are best done fast and some things are better left to play out slowly. Concerning the things that are done best fast, eating could fall into that category. Maybe it is not the best for your health, but when you are really hungry and the food is really good, how can you resist? On such an occasion, I have been known to utter, "Look the other way, because this is not going to be pretty."
Then there are tom cats. Usually they want fast affection. They approach and want our undivided attention and both hands working feverishly over their heads for a minute or two. Then leave them alone or get bit.
The athletic endeavors like swimming, cycling, and running are best done fast if one can do them fast. I can still swim a little bit fast, but the other two . . . well, we won't talk about that. And YouTube videos fall into the fast category. I watch a lot of these, and I enjoy them and learn a lot from them. But I want to get the information and get if fast. For instance, most of the ones I watch have an intro. I have learned that I can hit the arrow key and skip ahead five seconds at a time. I always arrow through the intro. They also have an outro, and I just change videos instead of watching that. One YouTuber that I watch almost daily produces really good exercise content. However, I have learned that when he starts repeating himself (usually about 60% of the way through), that he has nothing else to say and I click off.
Despite our propensity to do things fast, slow is still the way to go for somethings. For instance, coffee drinking is best done slowly. I would even go so far as to say that drinking coffee fast is an oxymoron. Female cats, unlike their male counterparts, want affection to be slow, gently, and long lasting (sound familiar ladies). CC can crawl up in my lap when I am wearing only underwear and begin to make biscuits on my goober. I don't even flinch when she does this because she never hurts me. When the tom cats approach me, however, I start reaching for a blanket to cover myself even if I am fully clothed. CC just wants to get close, to be gentle, and to hang out. Earlier I mentioned eating as something we often do quickly. It is best, however, to slow down, chew properly, and enjoy our food for longer. That is hard to do but the best to do if we can pull it off.
And to top it all off, if you want to know how God intends for us to live life, just look at a sunset or a sunrise. You cannot hurry either and why would you want to? The Bible says that God makes "the outgoings of the morning and evening to rejoice." (Psalm 65:8) They move slowly at their own pace. This is the way God created the world.
A few years back, Forrest and I were running thirty-miles to celebrate his thirtieth birthday. Or was is twenty-seven miles to celebrate his twenty-seventh birthday?He had us starting at some ungodly hour, or so I thought at the time. I resented that start time a bit. We ran down the boulevard to get some extra distance in then headed for the highway bridge, crossed it, and went out into the industrial park. When the road bent back from south to east, we saw the most amazing sunrise I have ever experienced in my life. My resentment melted away like the morning fog before a hot sun. We stopped and both of us took pictures. Then I understood and I realized how right he was to start so early.
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