You have been brain washed. You were taught to think a certain way. You may be living a lie.
Do you think you’re standing still now? Or sitting still? Do you believe you are stationary while you read this?
You’re not. You’re actually moving quite fast. In fact you’ve broken the sound barrier and you can’t slow down.
You’re part of a system that you believe to be stationary. It may be easier to think about it this way, but it’s wrong.
While I sit here and write this I am moving 683 Mile Per Hour around the core of the planet. You can even do the math yourself to see how fast you are moving, go here – how to calculate your speed based on the earth’s rotation.
cos(38.55) (my latitude) = 0.659
1037 MPH (at the equator) x cos(38.55) = 683 MPH
I’m almost breaking the speed of sound.
It’s actually physically impossible for you to stand still. Even if I found a way to move 683 MPH in the opposite direction of the earths rotation, I still haven’t compensated for the earths rotation around the sun. The earth is orbiting the sun at a speed of 66,000 MPH. I’m going to need a faster car to compensate for that, or maybe a spaceship.
Apparently I’m not the first person to think through this. I even found a website documenting “How fast am I moving when I’m standing still?” Suffice it to say, you are moving astoundingly fast…
So why do you think you are standing still?
Mostly it is just easier for your brain to think of yourself as the center of the universe. It’s partial an ego thing, but also a perception thing. We experience the universe as an extension of our bodies. Everything around us is perceived relative to our position and motion.
So why does being aware of your actual speed versus your perceived speed matter?
Well not to be too blunt, but it matters because it means you are thinking wrong. Every day you oversimplify your position in the universe in order to process basic input like a car driving toward you or a fly buzzing in your face. On a relative scale a car moving towards you at 60 miles an hour is inconsequential. You’re already moving at well in excess of 500,000 MPH (accounting for the solar system’s movement around our galactic core). So 60 miles per hour is a speed difference of 0.012 %. Statistically insignificant.
Yet, within your frame of reference, you had better get the hell out of the way.
We have learned to think the way that we do because it’s practical and it’s optimal to help us remember to get out of way when something comes along moving at a statistically insignificant speed, yet crucially damaging when the risk of interaction with your body is considered.
But when we keep thinking in our small way, because it is the most practical way to make it through the day, it really does a disservice to our actual experience, to disregard our reality in favor of our perception.
Speed is just the low hanging fruit of awareness. There are so many aspects of our experience where our practical perception and our reality are two completely different beasts. It is this dissonance, this difference, that allows us to be manipulated by fear.
Keep your eyes and mind open for your bigger reality. When you feel fear. Greet it as a known entity and try identify it’s source. Remind yourself that you’re bigger than that. You are better than that. You are faster than that.
Keep fighting the good fight.
Namaste,
Kevin
It’s all relative.
