Here’s a photo of a rock engraved with a Balinese saying. I pass by it as I come and go on my way out and about. Hati-Hati means slowly slowly – and it reminds me of Ghandi’s thought that the quality of life is not improved with speed.
Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Wild weather – rain and more rain, with flash floods, wind, thunderstorms, and snow on the mountains.
HATI-HATI
This is the age of speed.
High-speed fiber-optic internet cable has come to Pack Creek.
I declined.
And the GPS in my car regularly offers up the fastest way to go anywhere and gets upset when I don’t follow its advice.
Still, I always take the slow route home from town.
When I think of all my best travel experiences, it’s the slowest ones I cherish in memory.
Canal boat trips in England and France.
Backpacking hikes with friends in Canyonlands.
Steam train excursions and slow trains in rural Japan.
The worst travel experiences were on super high-speed trains in France and Japan – moving so fast I could not see the passing countryside.
Perhaps it’s a factor of aging.
But I don’t think so.
It’s a matter of personal values – to want to enjoy the details of this wondrous world. And not miss the small joys.
I choose slow.
Hati-Hati.