Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

Speed and Space

Rome/ Milano/ Italy

Perhaps its a European trait-about the road I’m referring to. Aside from the wide and straight autostrade where traffic flies by at an easy 120-130 km per hour the country roads are windy and narrow. Due to heavy rain I was somewhat obstructed from doing much serious walking, but the little that I could do allowed me to appreciate the curves of the country road. You wonder what’s around the corner. The scenery is a spectacular view for the eyes. Numerous hills, part green and part cultivated, gently roll.
The downside to the roadways in Italy is the lack of room for a pedestrian.

It appears the roads are for the machines and not for people. Its a dual deal, pleasant and not.


From the time that I landed here in Italy,I experienced a loving kind of people. There’s an utter softness. Affection smiles at you in the matter of people dealings. But may I be so bold as to say something about the flip side to all the emotion. Hospitality can be sweet, but the other component, a malice, an unwillingness to get along tends to be an undercurrent. Its not exclusive to Italy. It’s a worldwide phenomena. It’s as simple as saying where there is love there is hate, and where there is hate there is love. Of course, this is the mundane world we are talking about. In it human nature prevails. It becomes painful to observe a lack of harmony due to upheld grudges. I understand that there is constant upheaval in the government here. It is so hard to find harmony and unity even though from one point of view everything looks alright. We humans are great at putting up good facades. Nevertheless we must carry on and let bitter and sweet co-exist. Let there be space for both of them. We have no choice in that matter. We can just try to co-operate.

From Rome I took one of those speed trains to Milano. My carrozza (wagon) was virtually empty. I imagine in the weekend it fills up. I spoke to the ticket collector who told me we were going 250km per hr. The train has the capacity to go faster. I guess spiritual life is like that too. We all have the capacity to go at greater speed with our commitment and our surrender, but do we?

3 KM