Crumbs From the Corner: Adventures in Woolgathering

Friday, February 15, 2008

Slowly, Surely



"There is more to life than simply increasing its speed."
-Mahatma Gandhi

When my mother stands in her back yard she keeps an eye out for a certain line of three stars that burns brightly in the night sky. She does this because, after visiting Spouse and I several times, she determined that we too had those stars in our sky and we might, if our schedules were aligned properly, all partake of the same trio although we are on two continents.
My mother is entertaining ideas of a faster Internet service; should she indulge and should the speedy facility come within a reasonable radius of her home- which, so far, it has not though her nearest neighbours are happily ensconced- her life would change drastically. I urge her to reconsider before embarking upon such a change.
Currently her connection is so very slow that when she attempts to open a page, look at a picture or send an iota of anything, she must wait. That waiting invariably allows her to take a cigarette outdoors; to make a cup of tea; to consume her dinner; to watch an entire television show; to speak with me on the telephone; to do a myriad of other things. She might, depending on the quality of the speed on a particular night, be enabled to do one or more of these activities. Should it happen that she comes by a super-fast connection, there would suddenly be no time at all for any diversion. An evening might transpire like this:
"I'm going to have a cup of- but wait, the page is ready."
"I'll call my daughter- oh my, that was quick."
"I need a cigarette- oh my, the photograph has already appeared."
Her favourite television show, the tobacco industry and myself would all fail miserably without her slow Internet connection. Most importantly, she would never set foot in the back yard to gaze at that band of twinkling stars that makes her think of me; and the million and one things that she ordinarily gets done under the guise of waiting for the Internet would rarely happen.
The faster way is not always the beneficial way. As long as we use them efficiently, we need spaces in our life, little voids that give us time to get the minutest things accomplished.

2 comments:

D'Arcy said...

Hi there! I decided to check out your blog after you left a comment on mine. How did you find me? Who are you?

Phyllis Hunt McGowan said...

Hi,
I got to your blog because I was browsing on another blog called 'somewhere I have never travelled'- I got there because I was looking for reviews of 'Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" and I found a nice one on that site. She had a link to your blog and there I found you.
:) Thanks for coming by.

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