What would happen if human life suddenly slowed to a speed that was no longer threatening to other life? For instance, what if we could travel no faster than the speed of the animal that could carry us on its back -- an elephant, a camel, or a horse? How would that pace change the way we live?

 

It would certainly take us longer to get places and, likely, we would not feel inclined to travel quite so far. Out of necessity, we would become more familiar with the local world around us. It would take greater effort to escape from local responsibilities and require greater effort to resolve local conflicts. Our tendency would be to remain closer to home and to make home a more pleasant place to live.

 

Commerce would become more localized and resources would be more locally developed and sustained. Consumerism would be less consuming as proportionately less of our time, attention, and money went toward buying things and more time was spent producing to meet our local needs. Debt would all but disappear. Remote industry would falter while local industry and tradesmen would flourish. Market competition would be less based on the cheapest product in the least amount of time and more based on the best product.

 

The talent pool within a local population would expand and individuals would learn how to do a greater variety of things for themselves. Neighbors would rely more on one another during rites of passage such as marriage, birth, and death. Seasonal significance such as harvests, winters, springs, and summers, would be shared paradigms around which covenants were formed and from which we could draw mutual understanding. Relationships would become far more valuable than money.

 

When we did travel, it would be planned with the utmost of care and with the greatest reluctance to leave behind what we've come to know so well. Those that received us, recognizing our sacrifice, would be more likely to receive us with greater hospitality -- a hospitality that we would likewise consider it a privilege to extend to those who have traveled so far and whom we see so seldom.

 

Agriculture would change to a more sustainable practice that minimized waste and recycled practically everything so that our environs would not be filled with pollutants. Manure and human waste would be composted. Metals would be melted down and reused locally. Glass would be recycled. Plant and animal disease would tend to remain localized and such pestilences and epidemics would be less likely to spread or to spread as far or as fast. Except organic, local varieties, fertilizers and chemical pesticides would be virtually unheard of and locally suitable varieties of plants and animals would be developed that would amplify and make more resilient the respective genetic pools of their species.

 

Having to work a little harder, walk a little farther, and burn less fossil fuel, our environment would improve and we would all likely live healthier, longer lives. Slowing our pace would also likely decrease our stress levels and emotions would be less on edge and less prone to flash violence.

 

Oh, I can hear the protests. "What about Hollywood? What about the Internet? What about Amazon (the book company, not the rainforest)?" But are any of these truly worth sacrificing family covenants or genuine community? "You're trying to throw us back into the dark ages?" But that is a piece of empty rhetoric that has been thrown around for ages. It completely discounts any wisdom that has been garnered from centuries of industry, foolishness, and wars. "You'll destroy the global economy!" Since when does restoring local economy destroy the global economy? And what exactly is the global economy except that collection of oligarchs with enough money to control the world?

 

I enjoy a good movie as well as the next person, but I find them increasingly rare and would rather live a good life than watch a good movie anyway. I find the Internet very useful, but its usefulness would dim if I spent more time concerned with local issues, developing local material and manpower resources. There is nothing wrong with books, some of them. The Bible is a book. I'm writing books. But, like the Bible, the test of time, not the speed and scope of distribution, is the best measure of the real value of a book. Wisdom always finds a way to preserve itself, even if no one gets credit for it.

 

I hear the protests, but most of them ring hollow in comparison to issues of family, health, community, genuine prosperity, and environment. So what exactly am I advocating and am I living what I say I believe in? Honestly, I am not yet living what I believe in. So I'm just like most of you. But that shouldn't stop me from dreaming about and pursuing a slower, more meaningful, less superficial lifestyle.

 

Transition is inevitable. When we reach the limits of an unsustainable lifestyle, one way or another and whether we like it or not, we will transition into something else. But we can choose to engineer that transition or to be driven by it. We can either embrace it or suffer from it. If we do not begin to orient ourselves now to a more sustainable lifestyle at the speed of life, we will all become casualties of the greed, violence, and wars that seek to gain by force that which can only truly be gained by neighborliness.

 

In my view, there are really one two trends to choose from. One is the urban, more industry-dependent lifestyle fueled by the unsustainable mechanism of perpetually unprecedented growth. But this trend has proven disastrous, not only to the social health and welfare of nations but also to the environment that sustains us. The other is the agrarian, more rural lifestyle, fueled by community and a commitment to developing the local economy. This latter, more pedestrian lifestyle has fallen from favor not due to its lack of merit as much as due to the popularized glamour of lust. "Bigger, better, faster" ad campaigns have convinced us that travel at the speed of life is neither glamorous nor exciting. But how much of life can you profoundly enjoy at seventy miles (or more) per hour? Moving so fast, doesn't the landscape blur a little?

 

I think I'd rather travel at the speed of life.

 

Michael Hennen