Honore Embraces SLOW

I read Carl Honore's book "In Praise of Slowness" roughly two years ago and blogged about it here. His first time at PopTech, he re-emphasized his plea to slow down.

Twenty four months later, he is able to tell us that the slow movement is finally taking off and people are making efforts to slow down. Athletes are signing up for yoga and meditation classes to foster an inner calm and an inner slowness.

20% of Americans are now willing to break off lovemaking to take an email or phone call. Yet, people are flocking to Italy to take workshops on slow sex. Apparently there's an official slow sex movement in Italy. Who knew? Yet, I'm not surprised. The Italians love to live slowly in so many aspects of their lives, my favorite of which is EATING.

He notes that large institutions like Harvard and corporations like PriceWaterhouse Coopers are encouraging people to take walks in a park, go on vacation, and get enough sleep.

Some companies have even introduced chill out rooms, napping capsules, siesta suites, and yoga classes. Even children need to know that you are moving at their pace before they willing to open up.

The slow revolution touts that less is more and slow is better. We're starting to see slow architecture, slow research, slow management, slow design, slow food.

It's a movement, but not an extreme fundamentalist movement asserts Carl. "It's about relearning the lost art of shifting gears and not trying to do everything as fast as possible but as well as possible." He claims he is a reformed speedaholic and that he has comes to terms with his inner tortoise. Hmmm, not a bad idea for all of us to spend more time with our inner tortoise.