What Can We Learn from a Turtle?

Today I visited the Op de Rug van de Schildpad (On the Back of the Turtle) exhibition at Kunstkerk.

Turtles have existed for millions of years, even before the dinosaurs. Throughout history, they have appeared in myths and legends across many cultures, becoming symbols of the universe, time, and wisdom.

In Hindu mythology, Vishnu takes the form of a giant turtle called Kurma and carries the mountain that supports the world on his back. Some Indigenous peoples of North America believe that the land they live on rests on the back of a giant turtle. It is fascinating that cultures separated by thousands of kilometres gave similar meanings to the same animal.

So why did people in different parts of the world see the turtle in such a similar way?

I think the answer lies in the turtle itself. We are talking about a creature that has survived for around 260 million years. Its strong shell, long life, and resilience may have shaped the meanings people gave to it.

As I walked through the exhibition, I kept thinking about one of Aesop's best-known stories: The Tortoise and the Hare.

You probably remember it. The hare rushes ahead, convinced that winning will be easy. Believing the tortoise could never catch up, it decides to rest and falls asleep. The tortoise, meanwhile, keeps moving at the same steady pace and eventually wins the race.

The difference between the hare and the tortoise is not only speed. The hare is impatient and overconfident. The tortoise is slow, but it keeps moving forward without stopping.

Today, aren't we all a little like the hare? We always want to move faster, do more, and be in many places at once. We often think speed is the only measure of progress. Perhaps that is simply the world we live in. But the faster life becomes, the more we seem to lose its depth. We miss the small details. Life passes quickly, and we constantly wonder where the time has gone. Maybe the only way to slow time down is to slow ourselves down.

But beyond speed, the exhibition reminded me of something else: rhythm.

The turtle never stops. It never loses its direction. It moves at its own pace without comparing itself to the hare. Everything in nature has its own rhythm. Day and night follow one another. The seasons arrive and leave in their own time. Nature never rushes, yet everything happens exactly when it should. We all breathe, and our hearts all beat, but each of us has a different rhythm.

Perhaps this is what people have always seen in the turtle. By quietly continuing on its way, it became a symbol of endurance and continuity.

I think there is still a lot we can learn from the turtle today. We can learn to slow down when necessary, to retreat into our own shell for a while, to rest, and to reflect.

But perhaps the turtle's strongest lesson is not about moving slowly or quickly. It is about never losing your own rhythm. Because more often than not, it is not the biggest steps that take us to our destination, but the small ones we keep taking without losing our pace.