The fastest man in the world is now Lamont Marcell Jacobs of Italy, who ran the 100-metre dash in Tokyo in 9.80 seconds, and bravo for him, but when you peak at 26 you face a long descent into normality. You run that fast and you miss a lot, such as the woman I saw as I strolled in the park the other day who said into her telephone, “I was not put on this earth in order to make him happy”, which made me happy to hear, a woman who’d gotten a clearer sense of mission. You find happiness by slowing down. At my age, you know that.
A few minutes later I saw an old man, younger than I, take a spill on his bike and hit the asphalt and was immediately surrounded by strangers asking if he was okay or did he need help. He sat, dazed, holding his right wrist gingerly, and then pulled out his phone and said, “I’m going to call my wife.” Two stories within a hundred metres of each other and Lamont would’ve missed both of them.
