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Hurtling Through Space and Time
February 22, 2021
Feeling the speeding up of time as we age and slow down calls to mind a life which began with boundless energy waiting for time to speed up.
As a child, we hurtle through the day then wait for time to catch up and get older. Then, as the young parents who chase after those children in turn hurtle through the days and years to then find themselves older, slower, and the days and years hurtling onwards towards infinity. Such is our sense of time and speed and it’s relationship to our place in space. Although we may think that we are at its mercy, is it possible to take a step back and view life from a different perspective to change the way we feel?
Consider this, the earth spins on its axis once every 24 hours, making the average speed at the equator approximately 1,000 MPH. In addition, we are revolving around the sun in 365, 24-hour days, making the yearly trip at an average of 67,000 MPH. To expand our sense of speed even further, consider also that our sun, one of 100,000 thousand million stars in our Milky Way Galaxy, is revolving around its center at 490,000 MPH.
As if this speed is not enough to boggle the mind, we must also try to comprehend that our galaxy and our neighbor galaxies are moving 1,367,016 MPH towards the Great Attractor, a region in space approximately 150 million light years away. Considering that a light year is the distance light travels in one year and that it takes 8 minutes for a beam of light to travel from the sun to the earth (93 million miles), that puts the speed of light, our current fastest known speed, an astounding 186,000 MPS — that is, Miles Per SECOND!
All in all, we are moving fast, very fast, and being pulled in all directions. In this hectic, frenetic pace we find ourselves, as we attempt to navigate amidst the hustle and bustle of a so-called civilized world, it is no wonder that we should feel it’s hurtling effect on our lives.
But fear not, the fact that we even have any understanding of a moment of peace, a day off, a leisurely stroll along the beach, a weekend get away or an early retirement, is reason to believe that time and it’s seemingly relentless pace beckons us to make it stand still, even for a moment and smell that flower.
“Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.” — Henry Van Dyke