Keep Moving
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Life is like riding a bicycle.
To keep your balance you must keep moving.
Albert Einstein
I am not very good at stopping.
My days are stuffed with chaos. Profound chaos that emerges from a brilliant mixture of choice and chance and children. Persistent chaos that defies my clumsy attempts at boxing it. And this chaos, this chaos that has come to reign, it keeps me on my toes, keeps me acting and reacting, thinking and saying. Night time offers no solace. There is chaos there too; a choppy storm of images and insights. Each morning, I awaken with shards of more chaos to carry with me.
My days are full of flux. Activity. Motion. There are creatures crying and singing and laughing and running. There are emails dancing. There are things to do, mouths to feed, goals to envision, words to write, hands to hold, memories to tend, fears to accommodate, hopes to fluff. There is Time, that beast that has no choice but to tick and travel, marching on with us and past us. There is no pause button. There is no status quo. There is evolution with is soft core and hard edges. There is change, good and bad and indifferent.
Life moves and morphs. We cannot ask it to stop. It does its own thing. And so. We must move with it, spinning those wheels, our wheels, looking ahead and around, speeding and slowing, the world’s wind whispering sweet nothings and sweet everythings into our tiny ears, toward destinations unknown. To keep our balance, we must keep moving. Always moving.
I am not very good at stopping. Which is good, I guess. Because I am in the business of living.
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Do you believe that to keep our balance in life we must keep moving? That if we stop fully to study the landscape of existence, to question things, to discern order, we will fall?
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I used to be more like this. Every day was a new mountain to climb, full of activities and goals to achieve. I was a mover and shaker, and my days were full. Then I had children and was so consumed with exhaustion that I was forced to rethink my life. Frankly I’ve been doing that every since, and in doing that I’ve slowed things down, forced myself to live a slower life. And I feel good for it. It suits me like I never imagined it would. So much so that I’ve abandoned some goals and rethink my career choices. This is not to say that I’m not moving forward, only moving forward more slowly, savouring each day, and catching my breath.
What a fascinating thing to ponder right now. When as a mom, I spend way too much time feeling guilty about the constant movement in my life. Begging my head to just slow down and stop more often. To watch a moment tick by, to feel life passing, to watch one of my kids actually sprout a little taller. Stop and take notice and feel the moment. But it rarely happens if ever. As you say, the Beast ticks on and I hang on.
I admire the souls that can be still and I value that stillness. And yes, I want some. So no, for me, I believe finding a few moments to study the landscape of existence is essential for survival. And that’s the balance I need. The balance of all kinds of movement and a few moments of stillness. That’s life for me.
Great way to start this day…thank you.
To always keep moving, never stopping, to me, seems unhealthy. I think back to the days of old, when people stopped to rest one day out of the seven. Religious reasons aside, I think it is wise to every now and then just stop to breathe, stop to think, stop to *be.* This winter, I was making it a habit to stop one a day, during the girls’ afternoon naps, even just for fifteen minutes, to drink a cup of tea and read something. Having those few minutes to be at rest, not moving, not *doing* made all the difference, and made it so much easier to keep going the rest of the day.
But that’s me. I am quiet, slow, a little bit lazy by nature. I like the calm. I like peace. The very word “chaos” makes me shudder. So maybe it’s more a personality thing than a universal truth, whichever view you take?
so true. when things are stressful and you find yourself burning the candle at both ends, at it least you know you have something to live for!
I think I consist entirely of inertia. Once I’m moving, I can and do keep moving at incredible speeds for incredible lengths of time. I’m juggling three businesses and home life and friends and family and pets.
And then I’ll stop, and I’m really good at resting too. I find it difficult to get moving again once I’m at rest.
I kind of wish I had a better gas pedal and brake, rather than just my apparent on/off switch.
Wow…Aidan, That’s a lot to take in. My cure for a rest is this… I awake at 3am and attend a 5am meeting of like minded individuals Mon-Fri. I allow myself this time 1 hour each day to center myself.. I ride my bike to and from this meeting. It’s very peaceful. I would also remind you to look back at your post “Health is Wealth” the title says it all.
With love
Always Bumby
Motion and movement is exciting and important. And so is stillness. There are people who genuinely love being busy and moving and doing. I am somewhat that way, but when I don’t ever stop to be still…that’s when I lose my balance. Also…doubts or nagging decisions that NEED to be addressed have a way of finding me when I’m still. If I don’t let those moments come…I’m in avoidance mode, and that’s not good either.
My baby sisters and I just had this discussion. We were talking about our middle sister and how she never stops moving. When she is awake it is bam, bam, bam, bam….Activity after activity.
I am not like that. I move in bursts of energy. I get a ton of things done and then I stop and make like Ferdinand the Bull. I just lie down in the field and smell the roses. Take great pleasure in staring up at the sky and watching the clouds drift by.
Little sister claims that this is a mom thing, this constant movement. I don’t think so, our father feels the need to move constantly too.
I think that it is just one of the many things that make people who we are.
But I can’t imagine living my life that way. Not judging or saying that it is wrong for others, but for me it just wouldn’t work.
Aidan,
You remind me of myself at your age. I had two little girls at the time, and we lived in a constant blur of happy and stressful activity. I was juggling more balls than I can count. Doing it all.
So here’s the Wisdom Of Age comment:
Though Time and Life don’t stop moving, I think that we must learn to do so in order to stay emotionally and physically healthy. If we can’t learn to slow down on our own, Life will eventually do it for us. I have been through several periods of “Enforced Rest.” These were times when I kept getting signals that I needed to slow down, but refused to do so until an injury or an illness side-lined me.
Those occasions turned out to be blessings. I learned to crave the inner quiet and stillness that come from a cease-fire of activity. Periods of Being rather than Doing. Now I fight for those times. (Which is the only way they happen in this over-caffeinated world.)
Rest, quiet, peace, centering, stillness, and restoration are worth fighting for. Even if it’s for 5 minutes a day.
Traditions of meditation and contemplation are powerful tools.
I have to admit that it was kind of a shock to realize that the merry-go-round still whirled, even when I jumped off of it for a while to get my bearings.
Of course, that may be next to impossible during a MOVE. Hope it goes as smoothly as possible.
Then maybe you can play hooky.
I share in the buzz and concern of perpetual activity …. My personal experience with “alwayz being on move” is …. physical& mental fatigue … burn out …. exhaustion. I think it was Khalil Gibran who suggested that we “… rest in reason and move with passion…” – based on my current understanding of this, rest is encouraged for preparation/planning etc. but when we do what we’re gonna do – do it with passion – flow with it! however if we “passionately rest” we may deprive ourselves of that which can only be cultivated in a truly restfull state and if we “move with reason” or, to echo sentiment from LAY, behave in an overly prudent manner we may deprive ourselves of that which “on-fire enthusiasm” provides …?