In Praise of Slowness

December 26, 2006-January 2, 2007
In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed
by Carl Honore

This book got read at the perfect time for me. I have owned this copy for well over a year, and had started reading it more than once in the past, but this time it stuck because the timing was right. It is a wonderful after vacation book, because the idea of the appeal of moving slower through life is clear when you have been doing just that, and it is a good New Years book because the idea of taking control of the way that you live your life is at the heart of pretty much all New Year's resolutions.

The basic idea of the book is that the human race has managed, with the help of technology, competition, and our own inner drives, to speed up our lives to pathological levels, and that we could all benefit from a bit of a slow down. Honore asserts in the introduction several times that he is not a Luddite, or really opposed to speed in all cases, but rather that he believes that unmitigated haste is not the right tempo for all of life's activities. That point is supported by some pretty sobering data and antidotes from modern living. The book then goes on to talk about ways that people are adding a little slowness to their lives in a number of different areas, from food and sex to exercise and the office. Honore is clearly attached to the idea that the desire to slow down, and the ways in which people do so, amounts to a global movement, and while I think that is perhaps taking it a bit too far, he makes a compelling case for moving through life a little more slowly and with a little more thought.

Now this is not the most well-written book that I have ever encountered. Honore is frequently repetitive, and relies far too heavily on the testimony of people converted in one way or another to the Slow (and yes, he uses the capital) way of living. After the general idea is introduced, we hear from people who started eating slower and now say their whole lives are better, then from people who started living in communities that allow for more walking and how their whole lives are better, then from people that exercise slowly and how their whole lives are better... and so on.

But for me, someone who recognizes, at least a little bit, the insanity of the frenzy that has crept into the way that I approach my life, the ideas, if not always the way that they were presented, were quite compelling. I saw so much of myself in the following quote from one of the introductory chapters that I was willing to hear some suggestions from the other end of the speed spectrum.

"In our hyped-up, faster-is-better culture, a turbocharged life is still the ultimate trophy on the mantelpiece. When people moan, 'Oh, I'm so busy, I'm run off my feet, my life is a blur, I haven't got time for anything,' what they often mean is, 'Look at me: I am hugely important, exciting and energetic.'"

Because I was coming off that cruise, and thinking about my upcoming New Year's resolutions, seeing so much of myself in that sentence was a little bit frightening, because I don't really believe that it is healthy for me to be that way. And when I really think about it, I know that I am not more energetic when I am pushed to the limits, and I am certainly not more exciting when my schedule is so rigid and packed that I don't have time for anything new or spontaneous.

So I was ready for some other ideas, and with that kind of open mind, it seemed as if many of the people that Honore meets with to write this book have the right idea. I do eat too fast, and it keeps me from getting the most enjoyment out of the food (while encouraging me to get the most calories.) I do drive in ways that are probably dangerous. I know from experience that a flexible work schedule can make life a thousand times more livable, and so on. This really allowed me to think about a bunch of areas that might provide room for a more regulated tempo in my life, and made me realize that I have, in some ways, managed to take even some of the things that he advocates as Slow leisure activities (knitting and pleasure reading) and turned them into a race.

And while I don't think that all of this is cultural, or that I can trace my stress directly back to the invention of the sundial, I am convinced, quite thoroughly, that pacing is something that I need to pay more attention to, and that there are areas where I want to make changes.

This book is not for everyone. Some people might find it a little bit too much. But if you're feeling like life is a little (or a lot) more frantic than it probably should be, you might want to look into it. It provides a bunch of suggestions and a pretty comprehensive study of some of the details of where we are as a culture, how we've gotten this far, and some options for taking that back. Some of the ideas are appealing and can be tried out right away (walking more, yoga, simply taking a time out when you need it) while other sections of the text discuss larger scale, and I think very flawed efforts. (The entirety of France being limited to a state mandated 35-hour work week is insanity). Different areas may work for different people. For example the chapter on city development spoke to my interests less personally than the one on slow medicine, which had me thinking for quite a while about the way that I want to practice someday, but I can think of people for whom the exact opposite would be true. If you want to slow your life down, or just find more balance in your pacing, this book may help you find a way to do just that.

Of course it may also force you, as it forced me, to face some cruel realities about the way that speed has crept into your life, and the level of the challenge that you face in getting rid of it. For example, the chapter on raising children is largely devoted to the structure of education and the idea that a less hurried one is better. That's all well and good if less parental pressure would really leave a legion of carefree kiddies, or if less emphasis on testing would produce a world in which all children could learn in a pressure free environment. But I'm not convinced that's true. Thinking back on my education, I think that the source of the pressure that pushed me into the speed that still dominates some areas of my life was a little closer to home, and Honore doesn't seem to have too many ideas for dealing with those of us that are intrinsically driven by something in the personality that pushes to more more more without the need for crazy teachers and overbearing parents. (I had neither.)

But this is not a self-help book either, so that's not Honore's job. I suppose that I would classify it as a work of social observation and commentary, and it can serve that purpose without trying to conquer all of my speeding demons. Besides, the belief that Honore puts at the core of his movement is not that everything should be done slowly, but rather that everything should be done at an appropriate pace for the action, something that he describes with the musical term tempo giusto.

"The secret is balance: instead of doing everything faster, do everything at the right speed. Sometimes fast. Sometimes slow. Sometimes somewhere in between. Being Slow means never rushing, never striving to save time just for the sake of it. I means remaining calm and unflustered even when circumstances force us to speed up."

I think, at the most basic levels, that this message is a good one, and one that a lot of us can really stand to hear.



Want to know what else I've been reading lately? Check out the 2007 Booklist
Want to read a little more about the process of this blog? Check out Bookworming in 2007