Hare & Tortoise-Disrupted

Remember the childhood story of the hare and the tortoise? Hare made fun of Tortoise for being slow. Tortoise challenges Hare to a race. Hare agrees. The race starts. Hare bounds off and is well ahead of Tortoise. Hare decides there is time to take a nap. Tortoise comes plodding along and passes napping Hare to win the race!

The other day, as I was rushing (a bit like Hare) to get somewhere by metro, I saw this massive drawing of Hare, on decorative tiles, running full speed ahead. How apt, I thought. Here I am with Hare, rushing through the metro.

Fernando Pessoa wrote in one of his poems:

Being in a hurry means we believe we can get ahead of our legs…

Hare seems always to be trying to do that. It’s ludicrous and physically impossible to “get ahead” of our legs, as that usually leads to a fall. But we often try to get ahead of ourselves, don’t we? But what is that “getting ahead”, other than a thought, a “should”? Basically, we are saying we should be somewhere we’re not. But we can only be where we are…if we want to get somewhere, we start moving in that direction, but punishing ourselves because we’re not further along, can lead to rushing through things, doing them poorly, or falling (with possibly more dire consequences). 

Alan Watts made a startingly simple and truthful observation: 

 “The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”

And that drive towards something beyond “ourselves” comes from ego. Somehow, we are not content with being made of stardust, having had the good fortune to arrive on this planet that took 13.8 billion years in the making at a moment in which we have indoor plumbing, Netflix, and food delivery.

Yet, somehow, we have decided that if we just rush along just a little bit faster and get more done, we will get ahead of time, and on top of things. Only then will we have achieved something worthwhile and can relax. And so we rush through life. If Hare, Tortoise, and Rat did not have better things to do, they would be laughing out loud at us right now.  

There is nothing to achieve that will make us more valuable or loved or worthwhile than we already are, exactly as we are.

And, then, as you, observant reader, will likely have noticed in the drawing above, Hare is carrying Tortoise. Now, there’s a disruption to the story!  

What can it mean? 

Well, maybe the race is best won not by getting ahead (of others), but by getting along with…

Maybe Hare has realized that Tortoise has more wisdom, so if Tortoise is taken along, Hare will not feel the need to rush so much, and, together, they can pace themselves better.

Maybe it’s more fun. Since they’re both headed the same way, they can have a nice chat along the way. 

Maybe by slowing down, Tortoise can keep Hare from rushing down the wrong path, or course correct before it’s too late.

In life, slowing down reveals more than speeding up.

Maybe Tortoise is the counterpoint to our inner Hare. Maybe Tortoise is that part of us that worries far less about time and achieving, and so moves at a more leisurely pace than our Hare. So, whenever our Hare tries to get ahead, our Tortoise can go along for the ride and even persuade our Hare to stop and ponder Pessoa’s words: 

No, I don’t know how to hurry.

If I reach out one arm I can reach exactly as far as my arm can reach –

Not a centimetre further.

I touch only what I touch, not what I think.

I can only sit where I am.