Recently I read the book “In Praise of Slow: How a Worldwide Movement is Challenging the Cult of Speed” and was totally captivated by it. Partly, I suppose, because it resonated so deeply with me and how I live. From my childhood, I have been chastised for being slow for most of my life. I have never felt the urge to run after anything or anyone, allowing life to happen as God allowed it to happen. When I was younger, I would let a bus pass by and wait for the next one, ignoring the others who were chasing the bus. The same pattern, I have followed in other areas where people run fast – typically the elements that makeup success in today’s definition. And though the measure of my success is relatively modest, largely I have been happy with my life. Would I have achieved a lot more than I have if I had intentionally chased things I didn’t? Possibly yes. Would I have been happier and more fulfilled? Maybe. But also, maybe not.
This is why when I read about and heard about the “Slow Movement”, I loved it at first sight. The Slow Movement comprises an eclectic gathering of people devoted to slow activism. The Movement now has several strands. The most prominent of these is the Slow Food Movement. In fact, Slow Food was the pioneer movement of this new trend that calls for calm, which was initiated as a contrast to the first fast-food establishment that opened in Italy. Today, the Movement is present in 160 countries including India where it has more than 100,000 associates. The Movement promotes more sustainable gastronomy rooted in the local territory.
In the mid-1980s, the slow movement was conceptualised by Carlo Petrini. The mass expansion of the fast-food industry posed a threat to his hometown in Rome. Having one or two McDonald’s restaurants in the heart of Rome would spark modernisation, but it would also compromise certain cultures and traditions. As a response, he formed the Slow Movement. His efforts prevented large fast-food corporations from taking over their cities, thus allowing hundreds of long-standing establishments to stay in business. What Carlo didn’t know, however, was that the slow movement concept would evolve into a lifestyle. Nowadays, people follow the slow movement concept to make mindful, sustainable choices. Some benefits of “slowing down” have been identified to be a reduced carbon footprint, better mental health, and a deeper appreciation for life.
Slow Food represents everything that fast food isn’t — clean, local, good. It supports the consumption of food grown locally, traded fairly by producers and consumers, and cooked using traditional methods. As it attempts to influence lifestyles, it’s not just an idea borne out of a protest against the industrialisation of food. It calls for the resumption of traditional techniques that will ensure that nutritious food and the culture associated with regional dishes will be sustained for generations to come.
The dichotomy between speed and slowness must be as old as history itself, but since the Industrial Revolution, acceleration has rapidly picked up. The cult of speed, and doing more and more things, has led many people one day to stop and realise that the fact of working a lot, traveling a lot, or filling the entire schedule with activities, prevents them from enjoying the activities. little things in life, the pleasure of the company of others, or being able to enjoy a good meal. We are constantly challenged by a relentless demand to decide, respond, and act without adequate time to really think through anything. A culture of haste has captured our twenty-first-century life.
The Slow Movement addresses the universal desire for connectedness in an age of frenzy. One hundred years ago it was easier to feel connected, with three generations often living under one roof, and familial ties consolidated by marriage and local rites of passage. Those days are all but gone of cooking, gardening, or reading a book.
Actually, there aren’t many spare minutes still left in our day for tech to colonise (besides our sleep). We are already so near saturation. It’s a funny thing, really… that for all the advances in technology and the many inventions we have created to make things quicker, easier, and more efficient, we have now come full circle and now find ourselves so overwhelmed by the busyness and sheer pace of life that we are all looking for ways to slow down. The question is, can we?
Utopian islands like the Slow Movement are great and innovative and worthy of all encouragement but can we as a society ever recover the simple joys that we have lost; possibly irretrievably?