JetUNsetter

Any music student knows this: the metronome. It’s not fun necessarily but there is something funny about it. You need to go slower to go faster. You need to tune in to the speed your music level is at. When we don’t rush, when we tune in, suddenly the metronome even though on the same settings, it feels as though it has slowed down! When tuned in suddenly there are so much time for all the many notes to squeeze in in between the beats. The space between the beats becomes so comfortable that seems eternal. Then mastery builds up, and we catch the faster setting and then with some patience and more practice the melody itself.

This is sooo counterintuitive. Usual first interaction with the metronome is stressful, seems like there is never enough time to hit the notes, it’s manic.It feels like we need to run after it. Like a rush hour on a busy boulevard. Similarly, the more the rush the more nothing happens. Everything stands still, is jammed. Too much and we do too little. Just enough and we make so much.

This is what fast food and fast fashion era got us wrong. Be a parent before 30, be rich before 45, wake up immediately when the alarm sets, don’t snooze, don’t waste time, be on time, run!

And then we slow down for a second, we go on a holiday or we just get sick and stay in bed for day and all of a sudden, in those same 24 hours, there is room for creativity, for thoughts, better digestion, more smiles.

Life itself, is about rythme. Presence and absence of life is measured by beats. Heart beats. Same as music beats. Rhythmical and melodic.. Life happens in between those beats. Exactly as music. It happens in between the beats. But we need to catch that rythme, respect it, follow it, tune in to avoid the jam.

Conversely, worry has no rythme. It is a cacophony into a continuum. It even disturbs the natural rythme of our breaths, the natural beats of our heart. There is no art, no mastery, no life into worry.

Think about that for a second (pun intended). Slow down, tune in and check how many thoughts, smiles, decisions, actions, love you can squeeze in between those 60 beats of a minute.

Maybe slow down, tune in and help me make sense of this one too…