When I see my 9 year young buddy try his hand – or, fingers? – at the piano, I’m persuaded to see what my eyes don’t see.
His small little brain!
The efforts it’s taking to process the entire new experience! Not just of the piano, but anything it tries its hands at.
Now… How brash it would be of me to undervalue and underestimate the mysterious miracle which is at work. A miracle that can easily miss my senses, if I were to be in any sort of hurry.
But, shockingly, that’s exactly the mode I get into, in the normal course of life. “Honestly, you know, he can be a bit faster. I’m trying to push him harder. We’ll see.”
Curse!
Try opening the petals of a flower to see it bloom faster than the time it normally takes. It’s akin to extinguishing the wonderful smile that blossoms out of a delicate harmony… a harmony that the tender system tries to bring about in its own unique, ‘slow’ ways.
It’s high time I realize the folly of my ambitions… and ask myself a few sensible questions: What hurry am I in? Where am I running in life? If I get addicted to running this way, will I not make it a habit to keep running all my life? And, probably, die ultimately of exhaustion?
Way out? Consciously acquire a taste for better and aesthetic tastes:
- soak in the moment;
- admire the nature at work – no plant becomes a tree overnight;
- subscribe to passion and peace and not to pace;
- switch loyalties to the tortoise from the rabbit.
I’ll be fine then.
NIRMAL RANGANATHAN 
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