Speed
Part of the continuing Blogger’s Consortium series with simultaneous posts on the topic being done by Ashok, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Magpie 11, Maria, Marianna and Ramana – in alphabetical order. And … did you notice the new member in the lineup, gaelikaa?? Be sure to visit and say hi!
At first blush, speed might seem like a superficial topic for discussion. It’s not. It is one of the most essential concepts of reality.
Einstein’s development of his Theory of Relativity is hinged upon the concept that the speed of light in a vacuum is the one constant you can hang your hat on. Someday, I will go into this properly, but for now, realize that his most famous equation, E=MC2, relies upon C, the speed of light. This speed is the key to understanding that mass can convert directly to energy and that a small amount of mass yields a LOT of energy as in nuclear power plants and atomic bombs!
But speed has more mundane meanings that impinge in easily perceptible ways upon our daily lives. Feeling the need to go more rapidly than I want to has always been a source of stress for me. A deadline that is forcing my performance can cause me to become shorter tempered and brittle in my dealings with the world. As Mom tells me, these are the problems of a Type-B in a Type-A world. When hurried, I have difficulty finding rhythm, harmony, the proper reflection that I like to give life.
Speed in youth becomes a goal in and of itself. There is a desire to get into a car and go as fast as possible or to throw a ball as fast as possible. With maturity, comes the realization that the proper speed is much more important, for a top level hitter can often catch up to the fastest pitch, but can be totally fooled by expecting the fastest and getting something somewhat slower, starting his swing too early.
Likewise, coordinated speed is the essence of team play. A quarterback must not just be able to throw a football rapidly, he needs to be able to throw it to arrive at the same time and place as his receiver. The same with business projects, delivery of product at the right time is essential. It can be the difference between a company’s success or failure.
Learning to play within oneself becomes another essential concept to a good athlete. Don’t do something with more speed than you can control. Jack Nicklaus once said that he never swung at more than 95% of his top speed because that was the limit of what he could control. The limit of what I can control in a swing is probably much less. Anything over about 80% speed and I think I start distortion of my swing and my body parts get out of sync and misaligned, producing a bad shot. But I saw Tiger Woods hit two drives from up close yesterday and must say that he has mastered control of a lot of speed!!! However, it is the speed of his putts that wins holes and tournaments for him.
Isn’t our mastery of speed in our lives one of the most meaningful achievements of a day or a life? Even for a society, the speed of change and development is totally essential to peace, harmony and success. Speed isn’t the goal, proper speed is the goal. Coordinated speed. Speed within our control.
Now, it’s time to drink a cup of coffee. I’m going for a nice cruising speed.
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Tags: Einstein, Harmony, Peace, Speed, Tiger Woods
Ah, Conrad, you are preaching to the already converted! If you see my post on the same subject, you will see how I operate within my controllable range of speed. I shall indeed keep watching out for the curves! Not the kind that you meant however!
Rummuser´s last blog ..Speed!
Since my speed is snails pace right now, I’ll join you in that coffee. I’ll bring cake!
Grannymar´s last blog ..Speed
Ramana, I could see us ambling through the countryside on your cart, enjoying life rather than speeding past it.
What kind of cake, GM?? I’m not picky, just curious.
Mm… Einstein and all that…. the other day I had someone explaining the connection between time and space in terms of the speed of light and Pythagoras…triangles and things…
One of the quotations I found was about business…something about managers being responsible for the speed of an operation…
Now, that coffee will have to wait until tomorrow…but a glass of Primitivo from Puglia is just the thing tonight..savoured at a gentle pace….
Magpie 11´s last blog ..Speed
Apparently at the age of 60, I still don’t have any kind of control – it just cost me $200 in the form of a speed citation! What is really embarrassing is that I talked my way out of another one about 3 months ago. Evidently that warning did not take! But the $200 did get my attention and I am closely monitoring the speedometer now!
Magpie, I have the feeling you master your pace very nicely!
Deb … you were always made for speed! How can the sleek Jaguar be asked to walk slowly?
Speed seems to be the means to the end, not the end in itself!
gaelikaa´s last blog ..The Beautician in the Kitchen!
Conrad, I think knowing how you operate in this world gives you the effect you discuss – coordinated speed.
The world may want us to go faster, but we can choose how to respond for maximum control.
Deb, bat those beautiful eyes next time, and you will be off scotfree!
I have taken this all to heart, and have arrived to comment at the proper and controlled speed. I could feel my eyes begin to cross as I was reading the paragraph on Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, but I speed read my way through it. (Probably why I was a Humanities Major) From there on you had me hooked. This post was right on the mark and mastery of speed and recognition of types of speed in our lives is so very important.
Now, may I join you in that cup of coffee? . . . if you are still sipping slowly.
Maria´s last blog ..Speed
Mayo & Con -
Sleek Jag – hahahaha – however, thank you! I am thinking I couldn’t talk my way out of anything these days!
It’s 5 pm here – let the weekend begin!!! Also – it’s MILLER TIME!
One thing I have noticed as I approach 60, just a few months behind Conrad, the older I get the faster time goes by. A week feels like two days!
Conrad, on the strength of this post – particularly your opening sentence on Einstein – I could fall in love with you. As I don’t want to – fall in love – I won’t.
Since I am in dire need of a coat hanger I shall now go and find that one constant to hang my hat on.
U
Ursula, first, it’s great to have you in the neighborhood. You’ve got to let me know how that search for the constant goes!
Conrad, you have a choice: Chocolate or Cheesecake all made by my own fair hand!
Grannymar´s last blog ..Situation Wanted
Grannymar, you have to get out of bed first!
about Einstein:
my husband doesn’t want to be quoted about anything. so i’ll say–the speed of light is the same in any reference system.
our daughter at her hair cutting business @ ucsb had a pic of einstein with hair looking it’s worst, & a sign:
“a bad haircut makes you look stupid.”
Bikehikebabe, your daughter had the right idea with the haircut pic. I speak from experience because I just received a really bad haircut and I look worse than that fuzzy headed old genius that relied on his wife for a lot of his info, Hope you are feeling good!
Corky
Deb, I thought everyone in Texas drove faster than the wind, lol. I love to drive fast…always have and always will. We’ve never had a new car that I haven’t tried out and I’m a type B personality. Joe and I were coming back from Salina on the Country Club Road and I decided to cut north and take the Niles Road to I-70. Pretty soon it dawned on Joe that I had my foot on the brake to make the exit and he looked at me and said, “you haven’t tried this car out yet have you?” I honestly told him no but I had it up to 115 and still had some pedal left. He laughed and said next time kick it in a little quicker. He’s a type A person and thinks that whatever he wants done should have been done yesterday……this has caused us to disagree a time or 400 but nothing terribly serious.
I have to drink coffee because Miller gives me a migraine that lasts for at least four days….white wine is OK tho’.
Take care,
Corky
Corky -
Once again, thank you for putting up one of your stories!!! OMG – 115 mph – I am type A and have never done that! lol FYI – I also prefer white wine but they need better commercials if they want to get quoted!
Sorry about the bad haircut – that is the worst ’cause you fight with it until it grows out!
Maynard – there is new material here for you to show Corky with G forces slicking her hair back at 115 mph.
Stopped by from the lovely gaelikaa’s blog and liking what I see; need to go make that cup of coffee to settle down for a nice, long read.
x
Chocolate, Grannymar, chocolate!!
Why Maynard, how rude, LOL!
bhb, what are you doing channeling your husband? And I’ll have you know that I don’t need a bad haircut to look stupid@
Now, Mom, let me know the roads you are going to do this on! At that speed, you’ll be in California in no time …
Helen, welcome to our gang of party goers! Life is kind of a romp on this side of the universe.
I thought it ironic that at the very time you and the other consortium members were posting on the topic of speed on Friday, I was sitting in a meeting explaining to a parent and teachers why this third grade boy was at a beginning first grade level academically, even though he had the language and reasoning skills to do better. What it came down to, when all was said and done, was speed. The boy has a significant deficit in processing speed, at the first percentile rank for his age. This means it takes him a long time and a lot of effort to process information like the words on this webpage or even concepts–he is extremely inefficient. This is not a common learning disability but one that I see regularly. If you cannot process information fluidly and automatically, your whole perceptual and information processing is disrupted. You can’t read fluently because you are still processing the components of words slowly and inefficiently rather than processing the words, and later the ideas themselves in ever more efficient ways. Although it is counter-intuitive, there is even some research to suggest that reaction speed alone is a pretty good predictor of performance on intelligence tests, which supposedly measure one’s ability to adapt to and learn from the environment. At least as long as the environment is the same as that of the test maker and the subject has had appropriate exposure to it. (I am not a big fan of intelligence tests–they tend to produce the concept of intelligence as static and fixed, but see assessment of cognitive processing as essential to understanding learning.) (However, with my slow reaction times, I would definitely not want my intelligence estimated with a reaction speed test for sure!!!) Anyhow, I thought it was ironic.
Rhonda, sychronicity of events always tickles me. It is literally coincidence, but is it meaningful or not? I always down inside think it really is and could lay that out in great detail and bore the crap out of everyone. I think I’ll do that someday, actually. But, I can enjoy just seeing it as insignificant but ironic.
Of course, it could be meaningful co-incidence and still be ironic …
Anyway, what you are saying about this boy makes sense to me intuitively. I agree the IQ tests as we currently use them are misleading, but then, nature does tend more to correlation than compensation, so I suppose they are like the finger pointing to the moon. Just make sure you focus on the moon, not the finger.