PACE OF LIFE

An object lesson

It`s quite staggering how many different forms of communication are around these days - Facebook, Twitter, e-mails, snail mail, telephones, even this blog with its facility to comment and so on and so on.  I`ve left out speaking to each other as that is a bit of methodology that seems less and less popular.   But by and large, the thing that all these methods have in common is that they are `immediate` - almost instant forms of communication.   My fear is that instant forms of communication might encourage instant responses - not always the best ones.

Now, 150 years ago or so, things were different.   None of the modern day methods were yet invented apart from speaking to each other face to face and the snail mail.   So, if for example you wanted to ask a question of someone in Australia, you would write a letter which would go by sea and take weeks, if not months to get there.   The recipient would read it, consider a measured reply, write the response and wait for the next mail ship to return your inquiry from whence it came.

It might have taken months but it did have its merits.   The first was that correspondence was carefully composed - care was taken to get it just right.  No room for knee jerking.  And in a way, therefore, the time taken to correspond at any distance governed the pace of life.   You couldn`t hurry if you wanted to and whilst today`s methods might be quick, I suspect the pre-electronic age was more agreeable.   Things were got right rather than got soon.

The other day, I passed our village hall, where the Parish Clerk does her stuff and where the Parish Council meets regularly.   As well as the Parish Council itself, there seem also to be a number of Committees looking after different bits of the Parish Council`s responsibilities.   I noticed an agenda for a meeting of the Parish Communications Committee, which seems responsible for producing the Parish Newsletter, which comes out every so often.

Their agenda invited the committee members to consider drafts of what might go in to the next newsletter, sort out printing and distribution, all of which  takes time, of course.   Previous editions which arrived on my doormat contained information about events and things going on in the Parish at least two months ago and, looking at the agenda, I can see that the next edition will be the culmination of much care, consideration and discussion and I look forward to it arriving through my letter box at some indeterminate date in the future.

I`m not knocking it - honest.   What I eventually get through my door might well be history from way back when but it will at least  be accurate.   I suspect, you see, that the Parish Council have got it right in their Dibley-esque way by hanging on grimly to a pace of life that suits them.   And who is to say they are wrong?