The Slow Revolution is Growing... Fast

[marmar]

from HuffPost:



Carl Honore
Author, In Praise of Slowness
Posted: October 6, 2009

The Slow Revolution is Growing... Fast



Being Arianna's first pick is a tremendous honor and a huge thrill. It also serves up a delicious irony.

My book is called In Praise of Slowness. Yet the Huffington Post is a fleet-footed pioneer on the fastest communication platform ever devised. Not exactly a natural fit, are they?

Yes, actually they are. And that's because the book's message is more nuanced than the title suggests.

The spark for In Praise of Slowness came when I began reading to my children. Every parent knows that kids like their bedtime stories read at a gentle, meandering pace. But I used to be too fast to slow down with the Brothers Grimm.

I would zoom through the classic fairy tales, skipping lines, paragraphs, whole pages. My version of Snow White had just three dwarves in it. "What happened to Grumpy?" my four-year-old son would ask.

Then one day I caught myself eyeing a collection of One-Minute Bedtime Stories -- think Snow White boiled down to 60 seconds -- and that's when the alarm bells started ringing.

I never bought the one-minute fables. Instead, I set off to investigate whether slowing down was still an option in the modern world. As a journalist, my first soapbox was a series of newspaper articles. But that felt too scrawny, too disposable, too fast for a piece of writing designed to upset the cultural apple cart. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carl-honore/the-slow-revolution-is-gr_b_310712.html

[CrispyQ]

1. "I have reconnected with my inner tortoise."

I love that! My husband & I are both tortoises. I look at the lives of some of my family & friends & wonder how they tolerate it; all that activity, always on the go, never a moment for themselves, a moment to collect their thoughts. No wonder they're stressed & need big pharma to help them get through the day & the night.

k&r

[raccoon]

2. This is an idea whose time has come. I gotta get that book. nt