It is precisely because we are dying that our world moves so fast. And the faster we are able to move, and the farther we can travel, the more evidence there is that it is because we are mortal and must die.

In the early 1800s, it was believed by the mainstream public that a human could not move faster than 30 miles per hour or he would die. The John Bull train in the 1820s could push right up to the 30-mph limit but not surpass it. By the 1850s to 1880s, trains moving at upwards of 80 mph were common. Of course, you know that land speed records are now being broken all the time. Man just keeps moving faster.

“It is precisely because man’s vital time is limited, precisely because he is mortal, that he needs to triumph over distance and delay. For an immortal being, the motor car would have no meaning.” – Jose Ortega y Gasset

The fact that our senses are limited, and our time is limited, causes us to want to move faster. A being of near-infinite intelligence would be able to gather so much information without moving at all that he wouldn’t need to move around much at all. Every atom is a universe if you have the capacity to look deeper and deeper and process the information. Like fractals, every iota of data could be examined in greater and greater detail with near-limitless capacity. We have two issues, then, (1) bandwidth and (2) the ability to understand and process the data. I’m not talking about computers. If you are dumb, you may see all the data, but you have no capacity to process it to any benefit. The smarter you are, the more capacity you have to process data. Time, then, is the hard boundary limitation of your ability to gain and process information. Slowing down (pretend you are on a road, and you choose to drive slower) you will see more, experience more, and learn more. The detail comes into focus. But now you run into the ultimate wall – your immortality. You see? Inherent in the idea of immortality is the fact that there is something outside of ourselves that is beyond our capacity to know fully. We can look into it eternally and never plumb the depths of it or know it exhaustively. You can put your head into looking at God’s world, but you will never put all of God into your head. Atheism, I’m sorry to say, is a lack of imagination. It’s a self-imposed governor installed to hold back the fear of what one might find if one were to look deep enough. That’s just my opinion, and I’m sorry if you’ve been raised in an environment where contrary opinions hurt your feelings.

We hurry from place to place because we are restricted in our ability to gather information and are strictly limited in the amount of time we have to exist in this world. If you were immortal, getting somewhere faster would be meaningless. Boredom is the incapacity to gather more data from the current information (or are ability to extract the information) and the need for more input. For the most part, stupid people get bored, or people who have had their curiosity and intelligence damaged by social mechanisms and constructs (TikTok and News.) Children get bored because they are being taught that stimulation equals living.

We stop looking when we are scared or when we have eclipsed our ability to understand and process the information or when we have become addicted to more transient and fast-moving interests. Shiny rocks and bangles and bows.

Anyway, I woke up this morning and had coffee and thought I’d drop that on you – knowing that almost none of those who started reading this made it to the very end… this is the part where I tell you that you should stop and smell the wildflowers.

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Michael Bunker is a local columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose columns appear periodically on the website.