On Needing to Move

Its been awhile since I wrote.  I have been incredibly busy.  I have been writing, (for those of you that actually have been reading along this is not big news) a serialized book since last November.  And while I only have a short bit to go to the finish line, I find myself at a place where I need to write something different for a moment. And so, here we go - a tangent.

On Needing to Move

In the last two weeks I have been in 11 cities other than my home.  One could say I have traveled a bit.   As I moved along this journey, from bustling urban areas, to heat-heavy rural communities, from the south of our great nation to its heartland, back south and then out east, I found myself getting caught by the rhythm in the mode of the travel. 

My feet picking up the tap, tap, tap of the moving sidewalk as it rolls cog-to-cog and we move along it, (like the cogs in the machine of society that we are), all anxious to get wherever it is we think we are going.  My hands drumming to the tick of the engine as it carries me further along the highway to a destination that is somehow always clear if not always dear.  The thick hum of the plane, the clack of the train on the track, even the smack of my heels as they mark my path to the diner for coffee in the morning.  These are the rhythms of the travel, the rhythms of life as I know it.

I watch the people around me and suddenly it occurs to me, that is all any of us are doing.  That is why all of this equipment, all these structures, this mess and fuss and cost, that is the reason for all of it.  We are driven to move.  Our scientists have created people movers, but in truth it is our reality that we are people who move.  We do not and cannot just simply stay still.

Even when we meditate we are transcending.  An act of movement, not physical, true, but a movement of its own kind.  I remember reading that we were created with an instinct to not just survive, but to thrive, and it is this instinct which has compelled man to seek to understand and to create.  This made so much sense to me at the time, but now I wonder if pehaps all there really is at the very core is a need to move, to not stagnate, to continue on, like the tiny little particles of matter scientist's study - ever constantly in flux - always moving.

Perhaps that's what people are driven to do - to move, to flex, continously - maybe that is why we dream - because even in our sleep - we are driven to be active. 

I guess there is time enough for nothing when there is truly nothing left of our conscious selves left. And maybe that is the point of dying, to be free from movement - unless you believe in reincarnation - and then - well - let's hope the next round provides a closet full of really comfortable shoes.