Moving Faster
More and more things are happening out of scale with the pace of the human body, as we understand it. Cell phone calls can begin and end before a human breath is inhaled and exhaled. This "interruption" of the biological cycles causes stress which is hard to measure. Routines are interrupted more suddenly and frequently. One could get a cell call on a wilderness walk from halfway across the globe, shocking the mind and body into a frame of reference it has not experienced around it physically for days. This sudden shift of mood, style and temperament, out of synch with the physical environment takes energy. Yet more and more people are expecting themselves to change gear in seconds from lover phone calls to angry client phone calls to boss phone calls to friend problem calls in a matter of seconds or minutes. At the same time as people are naturally drifting into their own private micro-cultures, making connection more tenuous, it is possible to destroy connection in a matter of seconds with a careless cell call that never would have been put down on paper in the hand written letters of 100 years ago. This very experience: of relationships snapping off sometimes weekly, in turn leads to more protection around the heart, less empathy and more judgement, which is in turn directed at oneself: for to all appearances, you are one of those superficial, callous, untrustworthy people just like that bastard who just hung up on you. This in turn creates a tension between the idealized self and the self you behave as: a new source of stress.Cars are moving faster. Computers are moving faster. Air travel is a lot faster than ships. All of which lessens the transition time between one place and the next. Transition time is a key factor in relaxation and feeling able to cope.More than anything else, our minds are moving faster than our bodies. We imagine our fast car and can see ourselves zipping down the highway, only to find that all those other cars are blocking our way! This creates enormous frustration as we struggle to make sense of "why" our image has not worked. The battle between the "image" and reality is fueled by advertising, which portrays a reality that is faster, easier, simpler and smarter than reality works... providing you buy their product. Which you must wait in the traffic jam to get to the store to do. People become the enemy when the question is posed: "Why are things not functioning as they should?" You would get to work on time... if only all those people were not blocking your way. You would get your report done... if only marketing had given you the material when "they were supposed to." You would get that promotion... if the boss was not so stupid and narrow minded." When "everything is possible," (a myth that is sold hard and heavy), then when things don't work out, someone has to be found to blame. Blame always bounces around and comes back, creating emotional stress that you are not accepted. And more mental stress: "I should not be blamed for this... it was their fault." More than almost anything else, the enormous speed and complexity of our minds creates frustration with people and bodies who will not cooperate to fit the neat boxes and timetables which look so tidy on paper. Ultimately, there is a split between the body and the mind, in which the mind physically abuses the body with artificial stimulation in order to "force more productivity," while the body in turn sabotages the mind's grand plans with a variety of accidents and illnesses. This uneasy relationship is source enough for stress as the mind wearily wonders when the body will betray it yet again?
