Our world is plunging through the vacuum of space at a speed of 67,000 miles per hour. It is always moving. Here on Earth, the speckled night sky changes, obeying the movement of the Earth. Ironically, 99.9% of the time, we do not realize this ongoing movement. Stars are hardly visible because the night sky has been betrayed by rays of photons from unnatural sources: street lights, cars, buildings. Humans no longer paint using the night sky as a canvas, nor do they feel a need to. Never mind that the stars aren’t even visible to begin with. Orion, Big Dipper, Sagittarius… are all lost in the reflection of how hectic the world has become.
           One day, I was walking in Boston. I saw joggers running to their hearts’ content, beggars seeking compassion, musicians conveying their souls through their instruments. I saw people. Boston has an enchanting rhythm, a beat of life. Then I walked across Harvard Bridge. “364.4 Smoots + 1 ear” was painted on the cement. A smoot is a unit of distance measured by the height of a MIT student named Smoot, and apparently, the bridge is “364.4 Smoots + 1 ear” long. I did not question the validity of the measurement and continued walking. 10 Smoots… 20 Smoots… 100 Smoots… “Halfway to Hell ->” I stopped and chuckled. The Charles River was a nice contrast to the city, despite its murky waters and warning signs about killer algae bloom. It was still nature, after all. Sort of.  A refreshing breeze scented of mist blew in my face, and then a feeling overwhelmed me. I was between two worlds. There was Boston on one side and Cambridge on the other. I realized the Earth is still spinning and moving at 67,000 miles per hour and that it never stops for anyone. Then a loud, obnoxious bus passed by, disturbing my sudden revelation. I observed the bus. It was occupied, but I didn’t see people. Lifeless beings were waiting for their destination so their lives could start again. And in their rush, they missed Boston’s beat, the cool breeze, and a wonderful view of the river. I continued walking.
           Perhaps I am being a bit too idealistic, or maybe I am even naïve. You may even wonder if I have too much time on my hands to think about such meaningless matters. That’s exactly my point, though. Time is something we make out of the 24 hours we have each day. We do not need to be rushed by the pressures and obligations of life. The first stanza of William Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence,” is

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour...”

            Eternity in an hour? That’s laughable. We hardly have enough time for anything, so we definitely cannot afford spending an unnecessary amount of time on doing things slowly.
           Everything in life seems to have gotten faster and more mobile nowadays. Technology has allowed that to happen. Cell phones and emails have seemingly become the dominant forms of communication. In the city, you see people walking on the streets while talking on their cell phones. You see people checking their emails on the go using those fancy personal digital assistants (PDAs). And so they cut themselves off from the world at hand, the world that is before their eyes. It’s not just cell phones and PDAs either. There are a myriad of electrical devices that create a temporary world of their own for their users. Another ubiquitous example is the use of mp3 players. People are walking in the streets, blasting music into their ears ironically only to cut off the music of the city. The evolution of technology has played a central role in creating an unnatural haste in our daily lives, manifested by our now apparently natural desire to do as many things as possible in the shortest amount of time.
            Technology has become so commonplace that we are constantly being bombarded with the whole idea behind it: making and doing things faster. Our mind eventually incorporates this idea into our behavior. It is inevitable. After all, we are creatures of adaptation. That’s what we do. We adapt, even to the hastening of our environment. Naturally, in the end we forget to enjoy the simpler of things in life, and we fail to see a world in something seemingly trivial like a grain of sand or heaven in a wildflower. We forget that the wind is blowing in our faces, and that we feel this wind. We forget that we’re alive.
            Around 11 p.m. in the lounge of third west of the Baker House, a MIT dormitory, Jean, Ryan, Josh, and Debarshi were doing problem sets. I was watching them. Of course, I had a problem set to do too but I was just sitting there and jocularly saying all kinds of things… like how I killed a T-Rex in Kenya (Roommate Herman is from Kenya) as my rite of passage. Apparently, boys of the Masai Tribe have to kill a lion to become men. Then Jean said something along the line of “do your p-set” and I said, “I didn’t start yet.” She had a bewildered look on her face. “You didn’t start yet?! What are you doing?!” I replied, “Taking life slowly.” They laughed. I should have mentioned the pass/no record policy. Later I started at 3 am and finished at 11 am. I was not being a complete fool.
            On a beautiful day with a clear, sapphire sky my 5-year-old nephew came over to the house; the last time I had seen him was about a month before. I had a lot of school-related obligations: essays to write, problems to do, and projects to finish. These things were insignificant when it came to playing with my nephew. I took him to the creek. It was flooding a pathway due to the discharge upstream from rainfall. There was a little stream flowing over this path, and there I played with him. We splashed water at each other. I put a leaf down at one end so it could flow to the other end where he would catch it. We spent about two frivolous hours there, but it was fun. In those moments, eternity was really in an hour. That time seems so long ago but I still remember it quite vividly. Years from now, I wouldn’t remember any specific time I did problem sets, would I?
            But you see, I had a reason in taking my nephew there. There was a lesson. So that when he grows up, he won’t feel pressured by the drive to succeed. Perhaps he won’t remember the time we spent together in the creek, but it will always be a part of him. He only needs to try hard and he’ll end up fine in the end.
            Our obsession with time is not so weird though. In the chapter “On Time” of The Prophet, written by Kahlil Gibran, an astronomer asks “Master, what of Time?” The master answers, “You would measure time the measureless and the immeasurable. You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons.” The hours conduct us, but do not let them overwhelm us with haste. Take the time to enjoy life and become heedless of the pressure to succeed.