Slow down you’re going to fast

You have a bit of time before I continue to write this blog entry so head out into the garden and go and scoop up some earth.  If you have concreted over your garden, just pretend you haven’t marginalised the planets fragile wildlife just that bit more.

I’ll wait.

Good, put it on a plate.  Not got a plate?  Go get one, I’ll wait.

Good, that’s done, put it to one side for a moment we have things to discuss and think about.

When I plan a walk, and I am guessing I am as typical in this as I am everything else about me, I have a destination is in mind.  Where I intend to go and how far I intend to walk.  Primarily the focus is a point on the map.

With experience I know how far I will walk during a particular timeframe and this is the basis for the destination decision.  It means I have to walk at my normal pace with my normal breaks (not many) for the duration of the walk.  If I get held up for some reason, I have to pick up the pace a bit if I wish to reach my destination.

Inevitably I want to reach my destination, its the goal of the walk, it is what I have set down.  When I get to the point chosen on the map, I turn around and head back, perhaps after a short rest to “catch my breath”

If I carry less, I can travel faster for the same expenditure of energy, its one of the sales pitches of lightweight and you cannot deny the simple logic of it.  I just choose a destination further away.

As we close in on 40 years since Man first set foot on the moon “and the other things” (never quite sure what they were and it seems such a lame moment in the speech) it is time for reflection.

There were no little green men, it was dead.  And as it turned out there are no Martians either when we sent probes there.  Indeed we have yet to find a lifeform in our solar system, or in fact anywhere other than Earth.

We were in a hell of a hurry to get a boot on the moon, it will be forever called “The Space Race” but probably the most influential and far reaching moment of The Space Race were the pictures taken of our home planet.

Global awareness and the need to conserve what we have really entered the average person’s brain right then and there.  It is still a very powerful image today.  It gave us a whole new perspective.

That handful of Earth you have there on your plate in front of you has more life in it than the rest of the known Universe combined.

Don’t be in such a rush to get somewhere, the most important moment of your journey might well be right where you are, right now.  Take the time to enjoy it, that point on the map is just that, a point on the map.

We are too goal orientated for most of our lives.  A walking destination gives us a superficial motivation for the journey but to focus in one what is a tiny fraction of the total experience is to miss almost everything.  Afterall, the footprint on the moon is the least important thing about “The Space Race”.