Azure Wings Café

We are in an age so modern that, whether we care about it or not, the speed of modernization is already faster than the rate of our progress. Rate is defined as the ratio of the distance traveled per unit of time. It then follows from this definition that the world is getting further away from us as time progresses, unless we move faster to catch up with it. However, with the need to move faster not found as a necessity, we move into a pace which we can travel comfortably. But what causes this deceleration?

The process of analysis involves taking something and breaking it down into smaller and smaller pieces, often to just as small as we need in order to find some sort of crucial detail. This can also happen to our lives in this changing world. When we find ourselves too empty even with what we already have in life, we analyze, we look at our lives at the minuscule scale and look for that crucial detail. Eventually when we find that detail we strive to fill it up in order to give us a sense of satisfaction.

Our inability to cope up with the global change is probably unknown to us, and it is only through this introspective analysis that we can find the reason why. And through this analysis, we are led to a sometimes counterintuitive detail: the basics. Just like how a sphere can be broken down into circles, and a circle broken down into arcs, and arcs into points, our lives can also be broken down into the simplest possible unit from which we can live it, that is, the basics, like how to ask for directions or what makes a person sad, etc.

Sometimes these small details are overlooked, probably because of our desires to move on and catch up with the fast paced development the world is experiencing. But what we don't know is that in order for us to make a step forward, we must first pass through the step before it. Take a staircase for example, you can climb it by skipping 2 or even 3 steps at a time, but if the staircase is long, you get tired easily as compared to taking it one step at a time. This is also the cycle that is called life, it's a long staircase that we can move by skipping steps in the beginning, but in the end this very act of skipping slows us down because when we are already at the higher steps, we have already consumed much energy and we are tired and then we will stop. However, the staircase is just like garter with a snail crawling in it. The snail travels at a constant speed and the garter extends at the same constant rate as the snail's speed. The snail has, mind bogglingly, a chance to reach the end of the garter after some very large time. However, if the snail stops to rest even for just a second, the time required for it to catch would become larger.

So what does this post emphasize? Well, the small things often overlooked in life are sometimes the most important. We often look at goals that are not immediately attainable, and attain them, calling this action a feat worthy of praise. But in the end, it is this feat that hinders us from attaining much higher goals than what we used to think is the ultimate goal.