The Necessity of the Undertow
When a wave rushes towards the shore it experiences the compensatory force of the undertow which brings it down and pushes it back into the sea away from the shore. The undertow slows the wave down. It’s as if brakes are being applied to a rush of water rapidly approaching the shore. If the undertow was not there, the wave would have risen unlimitedly with enormous destructive force and caused immense damage to human life.
Today we are faced with ‘Speed’ which like a wave is rushing at us at an overwhelming pace, threatening to overtake our capacity to cope. Before, when a path breaking technology like the car inserted itself into the human space it would take around 20 to 30 years to adjust to that technology and that would be ok. Today according to Eric Teller, CEO of Google’s X research and development lab, technology is changing every 5 to 7 years but the human being is taking at least 10 to 15 years to adapt. The human being is being stretched to breaking point.
The technological speed of progress needs to acknowledge the undertow of human rhythms. James Glieck says “Some of biology is essentially a pause: sleep, for example…” We need to rest our bodies and minds inasmuch as there are ‘rests’ in music. Silence in music is used for creating telling effects just like pauses in speech. So much of life is made up of necessary pauses. Pauses from work. Pauses in relationships. Like Kahlil Gibran states “Let there be spaces in your togetherness”. Pauses for reflection. Pauses for rejuvenation. We need to pause to experience our humanity.
Whenever something is over-stressed and threatens to overpower our sensibilities in a very rapid manner, we need to experience an undertow. An anti — force to create the balance. The Yin and the Yang. The thesis and the anti — thesis. For instance the overpowering wave of living predominantly in the virtual world needs the undertow of ‘face to face’ meeting in the real world. The growing ruthlessness of professionalism needs to be tempered by compassion and human kindness. Technological progress needs the undertow of ‘heart’ progress. The speed perfectionist of technology needs to be balanced by the relative slow rhythm, vulnerability, and fallibility of the human person.
Even the concept of business growth which has resulted in gargantuan multinationals gobbling up everything in their path to achieve global hegemony needs an undertow. E.F. Schumacher had stressed the concept of ‘small is beautiful’. Largeness alienates the human being and creates immense inequality. The gigantic needs to be restrained by the small. The large scale needs the undertow of the human scale.
