Day Six: Going Nowhere Fast!

Life as a vehicle..now in neutral. Time to slow down? But take time to speed up your internal growth!

Day Six

Life in the Light of the Corona Virus

Going Nowhere Fast!

Hawaii, paradise, Garden of Eden, immune to the Corona Virus? NOT! What follows is a 14 day diary of the typical thoughts of a person living in Hawaii, but under quarantine, isolation, social distancing, call it what you will. Any way you define it, it means changing the way you interact with others in order to protect yourself and those you meet and congregate with. It is a morphing experience, differing from day to day over the weeks. Enjoy the journey, grow with it, think the thoughts and create ones of your own.

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Imagine that life is a vehicle, carrying you through your days. Now its been shifted out of

high gear, and thrown it into low gear, or even into neutral. You are going nowhere fast.

All the passengers have been thrown out. No riders at all. You are in the vehicle alone.

The radio still works, so you know the world is out there, slowing to a stop just as you

are. But all you hear on the news is that every other driver is obsessed with the reasons

your car is so slow and so empty. Hopefully you won't need a mechanic soon. They are

hard to access at this speed, and are working with minimal tools. You are responsible

for the physical and operational health of your vehicle.

There are constant reports of accidents. Vehicles are pulling off to the roadside and being left there, valuable, but useless because they are grounded in that spot. The reports leave you confused and frightened about whether you can expect to get your vehicle operational and once again on the open road. The freeways are deserted. That does not seem comforting, despite your previous repulsion of over crowding and traffic jams. Traffic lights are blinking red. Every intersection has come to a stop and people hesitate to enter as an emergency vehicle may noisily approach and certainly has the right of way. Are the blinking lights saying stop and go, soon? or just stop! or that you will stop? Do not enter? Do not expect to proceed ahead? Confusion and poor understanding of the new traffic rules creates chaos, even on these deserted roads.

The only ones who seem to be moving on these afflicted streets are those who are mis-informed or mis-directed. Or are they self-directed, just using this time of vacant lanes as an opportunity to get ahead, unaware of the hazard they may be creating in the process? You only see the vehicles that are surviving and still propelled forward. All others are not visible due to their failure to remain movable at all. Is this apocalypse

now? or just a momentary blip where all you see are the self-motivated? A little of the movement are the selfless that throw themselves out in the traffic in order to help the helpless. Their sacrifice is monumental given the randomness of the traffic around them.

The driving force to get somewhere fast has been channeled elsewhere. It is now channeled into survival. The methods of making progress have changed...for the moment or for the foreseeable future? There remains somewhere deep within, a latent dream that someday, somehow, you will get your vehicle back on the road, and running, pursuing that goal on a road that you recognize, within a traffic system that makes sense, and in a world that is not random. That being said, it still feels like the goal has changed. Perhaps the journey itself has come to be recognized as an important part of the process and even as a destination itself. You have come to recognize that the moving forward has value in itself and recognize a previous disregard for the speed and the road kill created in the process. At this slow pace there is time to observe where and how the road goes, what your surroundings are, who is riding with you, and what decisions you are making along the way. Interaction and interconnection become more important that just arriving at your destination. Somewhere in the back of your mind you remember a name for this awareness: Mindfulness.

You realize that interaction and connection have a value all their own. They are

an enhancement of the journey, not a distraction.

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This is the sixth of a 14 article series chronicaling the first 14 days of the Corona Virus quarantine on the island of Maui, Hawaii.The seventh day will be published tomorrow. Check in to read it at https://karenMac1999.wixsite.com/website-1 or enter this address on Favorites on your computer. do you have comments or additions? Send them to Karenmac1999@hotmail.com. They are welcome.