Slowing Down in a World Built for Speed
Speed, notes journalist and author Carl Honore, has become a combining form: speed dialing, speed reading, speed walking, even speed dating. Modern life is stuck on fast-forward to such an extent, he notes, quoting Postcards from the Edge, that “even instant gratification takes too long.” But there’s a backlash brewing, he says, as everyday people start putting the brakes on. He concludes with the results of his own attempt to get in touch with his “inner tortoise.”
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About Carl Honore:
Canadian-born journalist Carl Honore has written for The Economist, the Houston Chronicle, the Observer, and the National Post, but he is best known for his advocacy of the Slow Movement. A loose and international effort by the harried and haggard to decelerate the pace of their lives, the Slow Movement spans everything from telecommunications (slow email) and health care (slow medicine) to diet (slow food) and public space (slow cities).
Honore’s bestselling book In Praise of Slowness plots the lineage of our speed-obsessed society; while it recognizes the difficulty of slowing down, it also highlights the successes of everyday people around the world who have found ways of doing it. Honoré traces his “Aha” moment to his son’s bedtime, when Honore would race through storybooks — skipping pages, reading portions of paragraphs — to move things along. (He’s since reformed.) His next book, Under Pressure, is about how we are raising a generation of overprogrammed, overachieving and exhausted children.
Tags: Bestseller, Business, Carl Honore, Everyday People, Houston Chronicle, Instant Gratification, International Effort, Lineage, Postcards From The Edge, Public Space, Reading Speed, TortoiseRelated posts
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