Ufff… second day at the job and I am already late… I hope the boss doesn’t fire me… The thing is that the day has been busy with a morning long training about the disease my team and I are working on. It never ceases to amaze me how complex our biology is and how clever we can be, in order to understand processes completed by things we will never see…
Today, the professor who was delivering the training, said at a moment that the enzymatic failure that causes the disease we are studying was discovered in 1960… that is 60 years ago… Now, think about how the world was like 60 years ago (you might need to tell me, because I was not born back then!)… but for sure, I can tell there were no cellphones with cameras, no computers, no emails, no Hubble telescopes, so all that there was, was the scientists in their labs, maybe with their assistants and notebooks with untidy notes… but clearly, with a very sharp, focused mind, and way less time lost scrolling screens…
Would that be the reason why people back then were able to make such discoveries? In my humble opinion, I think so… I think people got less bored, were able to sustain their concentration longer, because the fast pace of the screens and the ability to have all the information you need in a couple clicks, has brought up a lot of impatience, certainly that happens to me…
Several of us found in the Camino a “slow way of life” (not sure if that is proper English, but I hope you get what I mean!) Life outside the Camino includes rushing, google maps telling how to get from A to B in the quickest way, highways, and usually never walking. And in this slower pace, we were able to see things we never saw before too, lots of us had the opportunity to have real conversations with other human beings for the first time in a long time too… (because we were walking…!!! Have you tried to have a long conversation with someone while running and oxygen is short and the breathing is agitated?) and I was wondering too how many of us saw ourselves for the first time in our adult lives and had a conversation with ourselves long enough to get to discover a tiny bit of who we are…
In any case, today, as I was in my training, I was reflecting with awe and admiration how much we are able to do when we aren’t distracted… and I must say after that, I felt some sadness for all that we are missing when we aren’t paying attention… The good thing is that we have the opportunity to make a better choice in the next minute and the next and the next…
Let’s make the choice to think of the boss and his brain scan… looking forward to hearing how that went… We know scans are always a stressful deal.
Walking loves,
Cris
The Cellular Landscape looks just like Aboriginal paintings from Australia.I had a note book that I bought in Melbourne and it had similar pictures on the front.
Thank you Cris, as always your posts are informative and compelling. Today, I was asked to write a statement about my poetry and I said the following. “I write across all genres, but poetry was my first love, the one I could never shake, and as a prodigal daughter, the one to which I always return. Poetry sustains me, challenges me, and nourishes my soul like no other food. I like to think of our lives as collected works of everyday moments; each a poem if seen through the eyes of curious wonder. Although it does help to carry a notebook.” For me “regret” is a fog that distracts me from being present, for doing exactly what you said, missing things that are right before us. Thank you for reminding me/us of the importance of slowing down and not missing out.
Thank you, Cris, for these insightful comments about slowing down, allowing us to focus and contemplate.