Tuesday 7th July 2009 - Speed Kills

DAILY BYTE

Speed is the slang word for a chemical drug that consists of amphetamine or methamphetamine. It’s a powerful stimulant that’s often used in the clubbing scene to keep people alert and awake, but its temporary pick-me-up type effect on the nervous system means that it is used in a variety of other settings too. For instance, I once spoke to a recovering speed addict who said that she was tempted to start using again during one of my slightly-longer-than-usual sermons!

As a drug, Speed is aptly named, because of the rush that it literally delivers. It does so by increasing the levels of dopamine and serotonin in the brain, accelerating the action of these key neurotransmitters. This leads to an increase in perceived energy levels, heightened awareness and feelings of euphoria.

All of which sounds pretty terrific. But when you follow the road that Speed takes you on – the initial rush, the increased tolerance, the dependence, the addiction – when you follow that road you discover that it leads, quite literally, to a dead end. It destroys life. It’s true – speed kills.

But it’s not just the chemical variety of speed that people get addicted to. We live in a world that is obsessed with getting things done faster and faster all the time. Efficiency, productivity, minimizing down-town, maximizing output – these are the standards by which we are judged in this rat-race-ish world. And without even realizing it we trade Life for something-less-than-Life.

But every now and then someone comes along who challenges the conventional wisdom of the day. Wendell Berry is one such person. He is an author and poet who is fiercely critical of the short-sighted progress of technological advancement and our society’s endless obsession with doing things faster and faster. His ideas run counter to the mainstream thinking of our contemporary culture, and he is often derided as a result. But what he says cannot be so quickly dismissed.

He’s somebody who walks the talk. For instance, although he has written over 40 books, he refuses to buy a computer. Instead, he writes his manuscripts in long-hand with a pencil, and then gets someone to type them out for him. Now before you laugh this off as hopelessly outdated and embarrassingly archaic, listen to what he says. He writes:

“I acknowledge that, as a writer, I need a lot of help. And I have received an abundance of the best of help from my wife, from other members of my family, from friends, from teachers, from editors, and sometimes from readers.... But a computer, I’m told, offers a kind of help that you can’t get from other humans; a computer will help you to write faster, easier, and more. Do I, then, want to write faster, easier, and more? No. My standards are not speed, ease, and quantity. I have already left behind too much evidence that, writing with just a pencil, I have sometimes written too fast, too easily, and too much. I would like to be a better writer, and for that I need help from other humans, not a machine.”

My purpose here is not to argue for or against the merits of using a computer. But rather for us to reflect on what is truly important. Wendell Berry suggests that speed, ease and quantity are not the best yardsticks by which to measure our work and the productive contribution we make to the world. That in fact, these values can choke the life out of us, and rob us of much of Life’s beauty and passion.

This is an arresting thought. Maybe before rushing into the rest of your day you’d like to pause for a moment and reflect a little more deeply on it. In what ways are you experiencing the truth that ‘speed kills’ – in your lifestyle, your work, your relationships, your spiritual life? How are you rushing past Life and missing it in the process? What would it take for you to slow down today?

PRAY AS YOU GO

Slowly pray this meditative prayer, based on Ps 46:10, pausing between each line:
Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am.
Be still and know.
Be still.
Be.