Tuesday, January 14, 2014

You Can Stop

Theme song: Feeling Groovy

Remember the 70s?

Think back to that time before Prop 13 and before we all felt the real effects of Reaganism here in California and beyond.

We were probably feeling groovy just when groovy was already fading from her former glory and people like Simon and Garfunkel were singing about grooviness as a form of real time nostalgia.

But I digress.

During those last days of groovy, California implemented "alternative" public schools.

My parents, to whom I will be forever grateful, sent me to one of those schools -- carpooling and volunteering, the whole bit.

My older son hates it when I cry for joy and gratitude (it's so easy to torture teenaged boys), but that's not what's happening now. I have something in my eye, honest.

Just because the good people of California got together and tried to innovate new forms of free and public education, and just because many adults endeavored on my behalf and made an indelible difference not just for me but for many thousands of children my age and, finally, just because humans are always -- no matter how flawed we are -- making crazybeautiful efforts to make the world a better place, I don't have to get all sappy and teary-eyed about it.

And I'm not. Honest.

(Besides, their efforts largely failed and you can see what a mess our educational system is today. So what, then, would the point of tears of joy and gratitude be? A for effort?)

Once again, I digress.

The school was great, but it was a commute.

For the first grade, my parents and I decided (together, mind you) that I would give my neighborhood school a try.

I may have told you this already, but I had trouble learning to read.

The teacher at my new school told my parents that, while I was "not actually retarded," I should be placed in a separate class with the "slow" children.

I think that's why I get a kick out of being underestimated.

When it happens, it's like I'm wearing an invisibility cloak or something. . . .

As I was writing this it hit me, too, that "slow" gets a bad wrap.

Speed is exciting, I know. But slow requires attention to detail and allows for depth of experience.

In fact, you can't have fast without slow.

(Think about every human made fast thing you know. Like race cars. The fastest, best ones take the most time to build.)

Speed has a numbing quality and that is why it is more addictive, and therefore thought to be more desirable, than slow.

And what about stop?

Stop isn't even on the table.

One of my meditation teachers, Gregory Wood of Forest Books, tells his students, "You can stop."

Which brings me right back to my first grade teacher.

She was right. I am slow.

It took me almost a year to understand why Gregory would tell us we can stop and why that ability is so powerful.

As you know, I recently stopped.

I stopped. I stopped almost everything except eating, sleeping, walking and bathing. And even those activities I did with less frequency and quantity and more care.

Stopping is practically a super power.

Stopping allows you to make conscious decisions, which in turn generates serenity and increased confidence.

Stopping is stepping outside the general madness to become, however briefly, a nonparticipant. You realize you are playing this game by choice.

When you stop, you feel.

In the rush and tumble encouraged by contemporary life, stopping takes practice. It's a skill.

And before stop, there is slow.

If I can do it certainly you can, too.

Your Turn

Have you checked your speed lately? Let us know in the comments how fast you are going and how you are experiencing it.

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