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The Tortoise and the Hare

By Bruce R.

A while back I came across at a "complete" to-do list that I wrote over 15 years ago. It was all the things I had to do or would like to do then. Things like hobbies (build a model RC plane), home improvement, job direction (work for smaller companies), etc. It was over 6 pages of single line items! It looked like a lifetime would be needed to complete everything.

When I skimmed through the list, I was shocked at how much I had done and how much was not relevant any more; over 2/3 of the list. And I have no interest in identifying the 1/3 that I haven't done, even if some items are still relevant. That list was for another person and time.

There are times when I've thought of myself as the tortoise (as in the "The Tortoise and the Hare" story), slow and steady gets the job done. That list seemed to prove that feeling. But that isn't how things have happened. I've usually quickly completed one of those to-do items. For me, change usually occurs rapidly between long periods of almost no change.

Some people have seen me in "hare mode" and they've been astonished. This has caused major problems at work with bosses. They want me to be in hare-mode all the time. If they are inexperienced, they will see the tortoise-mode of planing, and setting up the foundation, as wasted time. Just do it. And when something is completed quickly at the end, they will only remember that it could have been done sooner, because the implementation is (now) obvious. The "now" word is always left out. "That two day implementation should have been obvious (to anyone) and been done a month ago." The "to anyone" is usually not said, if they are a "nice" boss.

The tortoise-mode is a slow and steady process of *intention*, moving little bits of chaos in the desired direction, or removing little bits blocking the change. When enough little things have been changed, and the intention is still there, the big change (hare-mode) becomes visible and is almost unstoppable.

In the story, the tortoise crosses the finish line and the hare sees this and he feels like a fool. "Slow and steady gets the job done" is the usual moral.

So here's what bothers me about this fable, if this is a metaphor for life. The hare can also cross the finish line, and in the usual story he can see the tortoise, so he is only a little behind the tortoise. So what if the tortoise won the race, the hare finished too, and he got to take a long nap, while the tortoise continually worked. What if the tortoise picked a bad route? Routes with predators or with rivers that couldn't be easily crossed? Maybe the hare was dreaming and letting his unconscious help pick a good route. Maybe the hare was relaxing physically, but he was thinking about the routes that will have the greatest chance of success. With this view the tortoise won only by luck.

I can hear the objection: "But the route was already known, it was a race." So if this is a metaphor for life, that would mean someone else planed the route and set the rules. So the tortoise wins because he followed the proscribed route and rules. This is the real moral--"follow the rules and keep working in the direction defined by others." But life has no finish line, it has no proscribed routes, and of course there are rules, but they are proscribed by many, not a few.

So I obviously see myself more as the hare, and I see nothing wrong with that. Well almost. There are still some regrets, for all my inactions. Should I really have these regrets? Probably not, because what is obvious now, was not obvious before now, so how could I have taken any action. But this physical world demands action, even if it is just to eat. I can see the sticks everywhere, goading me to move. I hate it, but without them, I would be happy to just sit and dream, and plan. Wow! That's what my dad said about the afterlife, "they can only plan and chart," the learning, action, and change, happens here, in life.

Or, as another wise person summarized this essay, take life at the pace and direction that you need, not the pace or direction defined by others.

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