In Praise of Slowness by Carl Honoré
Posted on March 25th, 2006
This is a book about slowing down in various aspects of life, both obvious ones like work and sex but also less obvious ones like food, exercise, and child-rearing. The premise of mentioning all this is laid out early on:
In 1982 Larry Dossey, an American physician, coined the term "time-sickness" to describe the obsessive belief that "time is getting away, that there isn't enough of it, and that you must pedal faster and faster to keep up." These days, the whole world is time-sick. We all belong to the same cult of speed. Standing in that lineup for my flight home to London, I began to grapple with the questions that lie at heart of this book: Why are we always in such a rush? What is the cure for time-sickness? Is it possible, or even desirable, to slow down?
Honoré isn't advocating Luddism or saying that speed is something that should, or even can, be given up cold turkey. This book is more about becoming aware of high speeds that may have otherwise become the new normal despite their poisonous potential.
"Newyorkitis" is apparently one way of describing that poison, an term apparently coined in 1901 to describe "an illness whose symptoms included edginess, quick movements and impulsiveness." Meanwhile, technology is laughing all the way home:
Like everyone else, I look to technology to help me buy more time, and with it the change to feel less hurried. But technology is a false friend. Even when it does save time, it often spoils the effect by generating a whole new set of duties and desires. When the washing machine arrived in the early twenties century, it freed housewives from hours of knuckle-shredding toil. Then, over the years, as standards of hygiene rose, we started washing our clothes more often. Result: the overflowing laundry basket it as much a feature of the modern household as the pile of bills on the front doormat.
Midway through reading this book, I turned off the clock on my computers at work. Knowing where I am in the day relative to the 5:00 mark counts as one of the "desires" Honoré mentions. I can trace it back to being in high school and having a system of bells that dictate when one class ends and the next one begins. In most cases, I find that class and work are most enjoyable in retrospect-- that is, after they're over.
Without a clock in the corner of your computer screen to stare at compulsively, you're slightly less a prisoner of time. It was a pretty benign change, but a satisfying one. In Praise of Slowness doesn't make self-help suggestions like this, however. It sticks to describing the problem and mapping out the extent of its clutches. Ironically, it's an enjoyable read because it gets to the point without dallying.