I think people who live along the water--lakes, rivers, oceans--tend to live a slower-paced life. Check any community located directly on the water and tell me if it isn’t true. The further you get away from water, the quicker the pace of life becomes. I swear it’s true, and this makes me wonder why it’s so. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s the water itself that slows people down.
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| Water is life. |
In ancient times, everyone had to live near
water because they all needed a direct water source, but as man became more
sophisticated, he was able to find water in other ways. He built aqueducts and brought the
water much further out from the original source. This allowed his tiny river towns to grow
into large cities. Crops could be grown
and irrigated much further away from the original water source, and more food
meant more people. And more people meant
more taxes and power. Ancient Rome mastered the aqueduct
with engineering marvels and then proceeded to conquer the world.
But as cities grow, they get large and busy. The water is shipped in via aqueducts or
pipes, and no one really thinks about it much anymore. We just turn the tap on now and out it comes,
so we don’t really appreciate it. When
you don’t actually look at the water supply, you lose an important
connection. Water is life. Plentiful water or lack of it has shaped
entire civilizations and always will.
Perhaps busy people get that way because
they don’t have any beautiful bodies of water to stop and gaze upon. Why would anyone want to rush by a beautiful
river or lake? They wouldn’t. They’d stop and look out across the waves. They’d take in that certain smell of a fresh
body of water. They’d walk along the
shore, skip stones on the surface, and perhaps chat or fish. But they certainly wouldn’t be rushing. This is one of the many hidden miracles of
water. It says, “What’s your hurry?” to
the passerby, who never has an adequate response.
