On a long and utterly enjoyable train ride last year from Hamburg to Alessandria, I have discovered the following:
The world outside a moving train moves both fast and slow. The pace of this movement depends on what you focus. If you point and adjust the objective of your vision on the closer objects outside, like trees, building and turnpikes framing the tracks, they haste by and you feel being in a race competing the world outside. But as soon as you widen the objective range to panorama setting and include the farther situated objects, the world slows down to a graceful dance full of harmony.
You can have both. Haste and grace. But not at the same time. At any given moment you have to choose on what to focus: to be fast, not noticing the world around you and trying in vain to catch the details of the blurred images rushing by, or to slow down and enjoy every single detail of your surroundings, no matter how far they may reach.
There are moments when you need to be quick. But focusing on yourself doesn’t allow you to be quick in time. Because, the close-by world just rushes past you and blocks your view onto the wonderful world behind those hills spreading with their infinite possibilities and colorful adventures in time and space.
Picture: A happy attempt to hug the whole world, Vienna, Sep. 2013.
