Speed 26 October 2016

Sometimes speed is all right and other times it can be harmful.

How can we detect harmful speed ?


We have speeded up in the last 100 years, because : we learn more,…our children will know more than we will ever know,…and of course the existing paradigm of “TIME IS MONEY” which directs us into sharp consumerism and competition. So the faster people work and do things, the more money they earn. That is a paradigm that may have had its days. Maybe we are lifting ourselves up to another paradigm that values and respects slowness instead.

Professional life is often hectic, fast and stressful. Modern cities, 
where everything goes so fast give an individual an enormous amount of visual input. Compared to some 100 years back brain cells have to digest much more information inputs addressing all our senses while walking down the street. Some seem to be able to cope with it while others seem to get an overload of information which is impossible or hard to absorb and results in physical reactions like pain, tension and stress. What are the consequences? 
Adaptation [Physiology. the decrease in response of sensory receptor organs, as those of vision, touch, temperature, olfaction, audition, and pain, to changed, constantly applied, environmental conditions.]! In other words: People get used to it…and then there is the question : What does that mean ? “getting used to it” ? Do we speed up our brain centres so that

information is absorbed faster ?
According to the 'physiology definition' of adaptation that is not the case; quite the opposite: ...its a decrease in response of sensory receptor organs... ( we become less sensitive ).

There are certainly different energy levels of adaotation in each and every one of us and we learn to adapt differently. Adapting to different speed : the speed of a rock concert and/or the speed of a baroque concert will happen to you automatically,…and you will walk away from it with an unpleasant feeling or a good feeling. And those feelings have for a good amount to do with the speed you had to deal with.

Similarly watching a great amount of TV

in which countless pictures come into our eyes, our brain has to deal with an overload of information and the speed of which various information comes in is very high. Filtering is the result…we just take up the information that seems to make sense. Some of it we do consciously but a lot of information comes in without our conscious choice. ‘If we do not learn to add any value at TV programmes and shows we become more ‘stupid’, because our own set of values and standards is being jeopardized.’

The amount of information we take in when travelling in a train (depending on the speed) changes our perception of, say, a tree. When walking past a tree we see very clear structures and colours,…of leaves and we here “pink sounds”plus we can smell it. In a train that sound is gone and the colours are different…but the quantities of trees and rocks and things we see are much higher than when in a slower moving vehicle. We are confronted with an overload of information that does not come to our conscious mind. Yet our brain has all the nerve cells activated by the visual input. What does our brain do with all the information which is taken in subconsciously ? And what are the consequences ? 

We live in a time of digital information overload and that is also speeding up thought- and brain activities. Yet, we can “unspeed” ourselves by exposing ourselves to less digital "overloadinformation".The next question would be : What is "overload" for any person? Where is the limit ?

 
When our thoughts are activated, our minds cannot stand still and nerve cells keep firing at each other. Eastern philosophy comes with remedies that might help: Happiness is when your mind is fully relaxed.

Then how do we get to that relaxed mind ?…”unspeeding” is definitely a good start. We can try meditation, slow food, slow talk, slow think and much more
OR we can start with no laptop or professional phone in your private homes.