Time is Money, or so it seems

If you were given ten million dollars what do you think you'd do with it?

If you were given more time in each day, free from just sustaining yourself, what would you do with it?

Some of us might mention how with money or time we'd do those things that we don't have enough money or time to do right now.

Do you know anybody who ever made a bunch of money and then stopped endeavoring to make more because they had made enough?

Do you know anybody who has gotten enough help from technology to save time with the "chores" of the day and now spends most of their time just enjoying life?

With Technology we have less need to actually do those things that make our lives possible.   Machines do a lot of work and do the work faster than we could.  Still we have lives that are scheduled to the hour and minute, and we never seem to be able to do all that there is to do in the time available.

Why is it that the mega rich just keep living lives that seem focused on making money?  How is it that we now have cars that will get us from here to there many times faster than we could get there under our own power, but we still have schedules, so tight, that we have to do our make up, eat our meals, text or read the paper while driving?

Somebody else said, "You cannot save time, but only spend it wisely" and I agree.

About "going backward"

It seems that rather than "going backward" in time and technology, the choice is to go forward, but away from certain things, given the experience of having both, I can make an informed and thoughtful choice between the two paths of living.
It is not a guess or an intellectual exercise, but a choice made from experience and observation.  After all I have history to refer to, as well as the present.  Because of my situation of being born in this time, and this place, I have examples of the most technologically advanced methods of living that man has ever contrived, as well as the most ancient and simple methods of being that have been practiced.

With this kind of knowledge, it is not really possible to go "backwards" nor does this description give full credit to the thoughtfulness of the choice.  100 years ago, the choice not to use certain technology, or seek certain medical prescription was not a choice or even an awareness.  I can now make choice knowing what each option offers.

"Going Backward" is not accurate to the choice, choosing an "alternative Path" might be a more appropriate term.

The new old math!

Especially when it comes to things Human:

1 + 1 > 2

The sum is always greater than the parts.

One

Equals

infinity

Facing forward looking backward

Somebody said to me that we are so much better off now, in the technological age than we were before it, and wondered if I really believed that we should all go back to a pre-industrial lifestyle.

The question is kind of a pointless one, in that it would be difficult, if not impossible to go backward, to forget what we have come to know.

I do believe, that if I choose to "go backwards" in time, or at least in my way of living, I am making my life better and possibly, the world a better place.

For example, by choosing to use a push mower that uses only my energy, and mechanical advantage to cut my lawn, I get exercise, I get the pleasure of movement, I get time spent out on my land with out the noise of a gasoline engine.  Because of this I hear things I wouldn't had I used an alternate energy source.  I slow down and notice the other living things in the grass that I might not want to cut down.  I save money in many ways in that the mower was free, rescued from somebodies trash many years ago, and it needs no additional fuel.  The world benefits in a bit less noise pollution, a bit less air pollution, less of a need for the fossil fuel and the infrastructure that brings it to us.  It also makes young kids, and some grown ups as well,  point and smile or laugh as they drive by in their cars.  That is a big help to the world when we can make anybody smile.

This is only one, and a small example of how living a life that follows a path that more closely resembles the paths of those who came many years before us can make the world better for all of us.  A life lived with many little efforts and considerations can have a significant impact on the world, especially if many lives choose similar paths making small but deliberate and meaningful choices.

Stop Making Sense

It is that which is beyond our 5 senses that we value most, love, peace, security.  If we have these things, we tend to disregard the things which are measured by our sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste.  Yet, we spend most of our lives involved in attaining only that which can be sensed, that which we can measure.


It seems the common mis-perception that the attainment of those things we can measure, money, material possession, sensual stimulation will result in the attainment of that which we can not measure.  All around are examples of the false nature of this concept.


Yet, we continue to feed our 5 senses which are never to be sated.




".........mathematical science after all has to do only with what is quantitative; where the qualitative begins, there its domain ends." - Rudolph Steiner, Mathematics and Occultism, A lecture, Amsterdam, June 21, 1904

Maintaining my mind, and the pond

morning on the pond.

As I walk along the shore of the small pond I recognize the many different sounds. I hear the bird calls.  I hear the croak/grunt of the frogs.  I catch the splash of a fish as it jumps.  I hear the plop, plop of the turtles as they dive off their sunny logs to hide from me as I approach.  I hear the wind as it pushes the leaves in the tree tops.  Even the sound of my own shoes crunching the twigs or squishing in the mud seems to have a place here that fits with the rest.

But I hear more.

The sound of combustion engines in cars, in lawn mowers or digging machines.  A helicopter as it passes miles away along the river.  None of these sounds makes me happy, or makes me smile, or seems to fit in a way that seems to add to the larger picture, the larger thing.

It is a strange thing to try to understand, this love for my life, my gratitude for this moment to be a human being.  Because I am a human being I can know how wonderful the rest of the world is.

Because I am a human being I can also know how ugly, how unlike the rest of creation, and how unpleasant I can make the world.

Why has man seemingly turned his back to the gift that is this situation we find ourselves in.  As if ungrateful, even vengeful, humanity seems to put itself upon the world as if to destroy it.  The very systems and cycles and relationships that give us life are constantly and increasingly threatened by our dissatisfaction with our place and our industrious genius as it is put to rape and destruction.

How many times will we destroy a existing relationship, entity, and then make an inferior and problematic means to replace it.  How many times will we hunt the buffalo to extinction, and then create feed lots full of hormone laden cows that live in horrible conditions and cause pollution rather than contribute to the larger cycle of living and dying?

Ships driven by wind and tide once carried us to the far reaches of the planet, extending our range for exchange and experience.  That wasn't enough, so we make great tankers that pollute the atmosphere and spill poisons upon the sea and require us to dig and drill and rape the planet of it's oil that has been locked up for thousands of years.  What highly destructive thing will we replace these things with when they are no longer enough?

My path, the one I am trying to discern thru all the noise and blurred vision of this speed inhuman,  is one of acceptance and gratitude and vision of things greater than my own self interests.

As I walk the path around this pond and pick up the broken glass, the shot gun shells, the plastic bottles, I am inspired to leave none of that behind myself.  Leave no wake, like a sailboat, use what is already here and leave no trail behind me so that another, many others can come and discover on their own, and recognize the beauty that will out last each of us.

It's not easy in this modern world to leave no ugly trail behind. To leave nothing behind that can't be reabsorbed easily into the world and is not toxic to another being.  But I have it in mind.  I keep it in the front of my mind.  Time spent near the pond helps me to keep it in mind.

We as human beings seem to have an amazingly large amount of access to power, but we also seem to lack the wisdom to use it reasonably.

A twisting circular path

I woke with a feeling of purpose.
Some how during my night of rest a part of me was thinking, pondering, planing.
On the motorcycle and off  I went, with a path in mind, but not sure about how the going would be, if it would be, but allowing it to unfold in front of me.

On this part of the path I learned that when the goal is not for my benefit, it is more likely to benefit others.  Seems simple enough, right?

I learned that most of us know just what are own biggest challenges are and we have ways of managing them, but we don't always choose to use those means.  That choice can only come from within.
I learned that the phrase "an inch is as good as a mile" can be used to decrease the distance between us, or to ignore the fact of that distance, especially in this modern time when we have such extreme means of communication and transportation, and thus we can find the community that we seek in with people we may never actually stand in front of because they are so many miles away, and with those down the road with whom we don't seem to be able to find the time to share a meal with, for our busy schedules.

"into every life a little rain must fall"  was once said, and I have found that "on every motorcycle ride, a little rain usually falls" is accurate.  Planning for it, embracing it, and sometimes stopping and watching it rather than trying to push on can make the difference between a great time and an epic misery.

Returning to home after a ride is a wonderful moment.  I'd fully intended not to leave home all day but instead made a big circle just so I could come back and really appreciate the place, and people (and dog) I'd left earlier.  The big circle trip allowed me to extend and strengthen the circle of that is my community.

Traveling with, Living with, "AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE."  Thanks for the day.