Slowness

"This is more an impressionistic, stream-of-consciousness book. His writing is very mellifluous. I remember devouring it in a single sitting – it’s only 132 pages long – and I like the way Kundera tackles big ideas through very readable fiction. Slowness explores the romantic collisions and entanglements of several characters who seem at first unconnected. Some are in the modern world, others are in the 18th century, but weirdly they come together and interact at the end of the novel. The book is also a meditation on speed, technology and slowness, and how these shape our experience of the world, other people and ourselves. Kundera suggests that slowness opens the way to wisdom, memory, sensuality and humanity. A slower world, he seems to be saying, would be a better place. For anyone wanting to delve into the metaphysical underpinnings of the slow revolution, this is the perfect primer. The first thing that everybody should do is simply do less. We are chronically trying to do too many things. If you write down everything you are trying to do in an average week, put them in order of importance, I think you would be surprised at how easy it is to start dropping things off from the bottom. Even now people are still watching four hours of TV a day, then turning to each other on the sofa and saying it’s terrible how I have no time. And a lot of us could spend less time wilfing around on the Internet, using it in a more focused way. It’s also very important to switch off – to have moments every day when you turn off. Our gadgets have become weapons of mass distraction – we’re never in one moment, because it’s so easy to be in two or three moments at once. Even if your phone isn’t ringing, you might be thinking: Why hasn’t it rung? Or was that a vibration I felt? I think it’s essential, like David Cameron in the cabinet meetings, to say there are times to be switched on, and times just to be two people sitting across a table, as we are, listening and talking to one another. Finally, it helps to incorporate some kind of a slowing ritual into your day. That is going to be different for every person. It might be reading poetry, it might be gardening , or knitting, or crafts or painting. Anything which acts as a brake and shifts you out of that mentality of speed. For me it’s cooking, and yoga. It’s also important to remember that while being slow is about reconnecting with your inner tortoise, we all have an inner hare too. Slow is about relearning the lost art of shifting gears. There are times to be fast. Speed is wonderful, thrilling, liberating, fun, and it can be immensely productive. I’m not anti speed. I love speed. I live in London, I play ice hockey , I work in media. I think speed is magnificent and I wouldn’t want to live without it. But you’ve got to have a range of speeds. Like any piece of music, you can’t have just one tempo. I guess what it boils down to is that slow is ultimately a state of mind. You can be slow anywhere – in the centre of London or in a cottage in the Scottish Highlands. It’s about how you approach and use time. Do you arrive at each moment thinking: How am I going to get this done as fast as possible? Or how can I get this done as well as possible? Once you’ve changed that inner chip, you can start living a slow life."