it's useless getting nowhere on time

mukul sharma

HERE’S a good pop-psychology sort of New Age advice: “Take a walk — but don’t go anywhere. If you walk just to get somewhere, you sacrifice the walking.” The homily basically exhorts us to try and get out of the rut of a programmed existence where we always need to reach a given destination. As it’s quite clear, they’re not talking about physical activity of moving from A to B but even things like a treadmill. Because on those machines too we usually pace ourselves to get to a point — perhaps a higher calorie shedding count, faster stride rate or an ultimately elevated heart beat. In the process the “walk - ing”, the actual the thing that happens in the spaces between events, people and places is lost.

Which is a shame because it reduces us to a connect-the-dots kind of lifestyle that overlooks the importance of the lines separating the dots or bringing them together. One can’t exist without the other.

Here’s another cool sounding bit of guidance of the same variety: “Give yourself permission to be late sometimes. Life is for living, not scheduling.” True, and pithily put. Again, it’s not really about appointments, interviews or trysts, where other people are involved who could be cheesed off by your unpunctuality, thus resulting — more often than not — in you emerging the greater loser in the bargain for being perceived as undependable, apathetic or insensitive. But, like, what is it with people who make a fetish of being on time for responding, questioning, understanding or sometimes even “being there” for someone? Because, that just means we’re being driven by outside controls, not necessarily listening to an inner voice or desire.

However, it’s interesting to note that a better proposition can be arrived at by combining the two counsels. For instance, a Zen way of looking at the same thing would be to say: “Take a walk — but don’t go anywhere. And while you’re at it, give yourself permission to be late sometimes.” After all who could possibly want to get nowhere in a hurry? In other words, going with the flow may be a great way to go on the river of life but it still reaches you to the delta punctually, and always on that river’s own preordained schedule. Meanwhile what happens to you besides being all at sea after that? But if one doesn’t let it all go at once and holds back from time to time, one could even reach places where others have never gone before.

credit: cosmic uplink, economic times