Speed is everything in our world today.
Cliche as it sounds, I think the phrase captures at least a part of the truth – for in my mind, it is unquestionably true: how fast you do things, how fast you decide to do them – all of that features in the grand exposition of what defines success and failure in this modern world.
In a way, this makes a lot of sense – in the grand totality of all perishable and improbable endeavor, regardless of how strong you are, it is useless if you cannot hit a target; if you go first, you become a first mover and can dominate the competition. In a world where so many other factors can exist but are just a little less relevant, here then is the limiting reagent around which others tiptoe, their entire existence negotiable; and in a world where the fast define the agenda and where competition is the norm and not the exception, a fast world isn’t out of expectation and neither is it unfair – it is the logical consequence of our life in what we might call a late-stage capitalism society.
I’m not writing this to complain about it – in fact, if I were to be honest with myself, I rather enjoy it.
I enjoy living in a fast-paced world, a place where we get things done quickly and efficiently, where daily is the process of moving faster and getting better, more efficient, more skilled, even in a world where everyone is moving forward as quickly as possible – all of us time-bound – refining the small and daily things that I do without a clear limit or end to the sequence of improvements in body and mind.
If I reflect a layer deeper, I begin to wonder if I am the way that I am and we are as we are not just because of competition – but perhaps because I, or we, have the sense that time is running out even as every human being moves forward at the same rate with the same constraints under unique and differing challenges of life.
I don’t have an answer to all of that – and the only answer I suppose that the universe will give is the universe it displays to all of us as individuals as we look around us, move forward, reference the actions, behaviors, attitudes of the billions who live on this planet as well.
Perhaps my having written what I wrote reveals me as part of the problem for those who cannot stand the pace of this world – one of those who normalize this pace that we move at, cherishes how we find ourselves constantly in an onward push, considers the inner workings of the clockwork within him the wholly normalized character of the machinery whether it is true or not; after all, we are not isolated from culture or society.
