On seemingly all levels of our society, we’ve made bold decisions to trade quality in exchange for speed.
We’ve seen our food and farming industries rely on toxic chemicals to preserve the food that we eat in order to increase profit margins and expand food businesses far beyond the healthy neighborhood it used to feed.
Environmentally, we have decided to rapidly grow cities, leading to massive unintended consequences for our planet. We’ve traded the health and sustainability of our planet in exchange for various profit driven concrete jungles strategically planted throughout the world.
We commonly witness businesses dig themselves into holes all the time by trading a strong and consistent foundation in exchange for quick success as they become focused on hypergrowth at a rate that the foundation is not ready to hold, which feels like a metaphor and a microcosm for a much larger pattern that has been happening in our world.
We’ve seen many parents decide to trade in the quality time spent with their children in exchange for time spent building their careers and expanding income, of which they spend on daycare and a nanny. The idea of daycare used to be laughable, you couldn’t possibly invent a daycare if you tried because there was no need for it. The children were cared for by the community.
Communally, We’ve traded tribal societies living in close proximity to each other in exchange for speed of travel. Fast cars, air planes, and public transportation enable us to live further away from each other. Because it is so easy to travel anywhere relatively quickly, we receive the illusion of closeness, leading us to falsely believe that we can afford to isolate ourselves, living on streets where we hardly acknowledge our neighbors.
On a similar note, we’ve replaced real communities with virtual communities that enable us to have instant connection through likes, shares, and superficial words that fail to provide an energetic exchange of truth, love, and connection. Yes, it’s true that I can send a message at the blink of an eye which feels like progress, but it unintentionally and ironically decreases the perceived value of connection.
Part of the reason I am writing this right now is because of my own inner-experience getting wrapped up in the world of physical accomplishment and content creation, which forced me to make an unconscious agreement of trading my depth of presence in return for attention. When you turn your life into content creation, it becomes inevitable that you miss some of the very important pieces of your life, due to the heavily practiced thought patterns that stir our minds and make us question how we can turn every meaningful moment into valuable content. This habitual thought pattern is one of the biggest traps that guarantees that your presence will be diminished during some of the most cherished moments in life. Maybe the most meaningful moments of life are not meant to be warped and packaged into something that can be consumed by others. Maybe the sacred is meant to be kept sacred.
As flawed humans who are susceptible be led into the temptation of more followers, attention, and fame, we can easily trap ourselves into trading our authenticity for opportunities to be artificially seen. We subtly mold our lives as we pedestalize the people that have a little more influence, money, and power than we do, craving to get closer to them in the hopes that they can give us a little slice of their pie. This chase for power is usually unconscious, and it corrupts the mind, making pure thought and selfless action virtually impossible. When caught up in this energy, we can be very easily swayed because we will be tempted to choose to buy speed and sell integrity, always keeping our eyes out for a chance to opportunistically use the humans around us to buy more speed. If you are a person with power, influence, and money, you have the power to easily manipulate these vulnerable people because you can dangle a carrot in front of them and easily get them to abandon their values in exchange for a small taste of the power that you have and they seek. Beware of this false light that is seemingly everywhere around us in 21st century America. The darkness is cunning, often masquerading itself as light. This is the how the temptation that is spoken of in many ancient spiritual traditions is manifesting in the world today.
As individuals seeking to be better people, we’re vulnerable to a dangerous shadow. I’m in such a hurry to change myself that I put pressure and effort on myself to change, believing that this will speed up the spiritual breakthrough that I am so hungry for, leading to the totality of my existence being rooted in an unconscious self hatred. Here, we actively trade acceptance, patience, and faith in the hopes that we will receive a more fulfilling experience of ourselves in return. This is fool’s gold.
In the examination of these patterns within individual humans, we can only wonder how it might be collectively unfolding. Is our desire to grow, develop, create, and change the world due to an unconscious self hatred of the human species? Even if our minds have not fully caught up yet, are our souls aware of the fact that we are slowly contributing to turning this beautiful planet into an uninhabitable place for our grandchildren’s great grandchildren? Do we unconsciously know this and hate ourselves for it? Is this where the incessant pressure to do SOMETHING and become IMPORTANT comes from? What happens when we all desire to be the hero and be glorified for it?
A Different Perspective that Includes the Infinite Nature of Reality:
What if we took a step back, and looked at life as not just a collection of art that we can create, sell, and be seen for, but instead life as the art piece itself. Then, it’s no longer about how many businesses we can create, followers we can have, money we can make, or importance we can gain. The game becomes about integrity itself. I no longer wish to trade my integrity for anything, because I know it will put a blemish on the 100+ year(if i’m lucky) masterpiece that I am painting everyday with my thoughts, words, and actions.
In this world, I would never even consciously consider selling my consistency in exchange for speed. Not even when the biggest and most beautiful carrot is dangled in front of me. I will choose to fast on that day, and in return for my fasting, I know that a beautiful flower will bloom, perhaps even an entire garden, and it’s mark will be left upon that 100 year masterpiece that I am painting. The physical art that I create within my life will evaporate, but the art piece that is all of my life and the beauty of my relationship with everything around me will echo through eternity.
Luckily, it is ironically when we slow down and follow the steady rhythms of nature that we actually watch the speed that nature works begin to accelerate. This is alchemy at work and it cannot be done with the mind. We can feel the energy and the language of the natural world and learn how to become a part of the river, and the work gets done for us. We no longer need the mind to keep getting in the way of the alchemy that wants to unfold. We can use the mind to figure out how to trigger alchemy, but once we find the river and the process begins, the mind ceases to have importance and actually becomes a hindrance. It is a beautiful paradox. Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.
The Challenge: Trust
As we integrate this into our lives, it will require immense trust because of its counterintuitive nature. Deep down, our soul knows, but our minds have been conditioned to not trust the wisdom of our soul, nor trust nature. We’ve been conditioned to forget.
It’s time to remember again.