Carl Honoré is an award-winning Canadian journalist and author. He worked with street children in Brazil before turning to writing. He has covered Europe and South America for the Economist, Observer, Miami Herald, Houston Chronicle, National Post and others. His first book, In Praise of Slowness, examines our compulsion to hurry and chronicles a global trend toward putting on the brakes. His second book, Under Pressure, explores what has gone wrong with childhood – and offers a blueprint for change. His books have been translated into more than 30 languages and landed on bestseller lists in many countries. He currently heads up Slow Planet, a gateway into the Slow Movement. He lives in London with his wife and their two young children.

People always ask me if I walk the Slow talk — and thankfully the answer is yes. My life used to be all about speed and quantity, about trying to do more and more things in less and less time. Now I do fewer things but I do them better and enjoy them more. And I no longer feel rushed all the time.

I went from playing four sports to three and cut back on the hours I spend watching TV. I say no to work offers to avoid getting overscheduled. I take breaks during the workday to relax, eat and do a bit of meditation. I stopped wearing a watch, which helped make me less neurotic about time. I switch off my technology (email, cellphone, etc) whenever possible, to avoid being always connected.

I now have time for those moments that give life its meaning and texture — time to read a leisurely bedtime story to my children, to enjoy a glass of wine with my wife in the evening, to chat with a neighbor, to stop and stare at a beautiful building or sunset. I feel like I’m living my life now instead of racing through it.

A big part of slowing down is having the right objects close to hand. Forget tat (rubbish) that is here today and gone tomorrow. I’m talking about handmade objects and crafts that have a story behind them, that make us pause, that are like characters in our lives.

Above our front door hangs a large piece of stained glass made by a young artist nine years ago. We discussed what design and colors might work and then set her free. She came back with a glorious swirly pattern of reds and purples that is a thing of rare and daring beauty. It stands out in our street and lifts my spirits every time I see it. It always reminds me of the moment we made this old Victorian house our own.

Our home is full of other handmade objects – clay pots, ceramic tiles, antique furniture and mirrors, wooden bowls, and soapstone sculptures. Like the stained glass, each piece tells a story – of who made it, where it came from, why we bought it, and what was happening in our lives at the time. I often find myself pausing to stop and stare. Taking a slow moment to savor an object again and delve back into the memories it evokes. You don’t do that with mass-produced plastic objects from Wal-mart.

I’ve never been very good at crafts myself, but we all have the capacity to create – and the act of creation is itself slowing. My outlet is the kitchen. I love to cook, especially with my children. We bake bread. We make fresh ravioli. We pick herbs in the garden and toss them into our sauces.

Cooking is like yoga for me: the thing that slows me down. It also brings me closer to the people I love. The word “companion” comes from the Latin words for “with” and “bread.” That’s because when we break bread together we are connected in a deep and wonderfully human way.

Homemade food will not last as long as the other crafts in our home, but the memory of each bowl of ravioli, each loaf of bread, adds another stitch to the life we are weaving together as a family.

What is In Praise of Slowness about?

It’s about how the world got stuck in fast-forward and how more people everywhere are slowing down. In other words, it’s about the rise of the Slow Movement. In Praise of Slowness has been hailed as a manual for leading a richer, more productive life by publications ranging from Yoga Journal and O Magazine to Management Today and the Financial Times.

What is the Slow Movement?

It is a cultural revolution against the idea that faster is always better. The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail’s pace. It’s about seeking to do everything at the right speed. Savoring the hours and minutes rather than just counting them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible. It’s about quality over quantity in everything from work to food to parenting. It is about forging deep and meaningful connections with the self, with others and with the world around us. You don’t have to quit your job, move to the country and grow organic carrots to join the Slow movment. You can be Slow anywhere, because Slow is a state of mind.

When was this Slow idea born?

People have been defending the value of slowness for at least 200 years — think of the Romantics, the Transcendentalists, the Arts and Crafts movement, even the hippies. But the idea of a Slow Movement which seeks to blend fast and slow to help people work, live and play better in the modern world is more recent. Born in Italy in the early 1990′s, the Slow Food movement helped recapture the word ‘slow’ as something positive. But its focus is food. More recently Slow has become a universal label to explain the benefits of doing everything at the right speed: sex, work, education, exercise, design, etc.

Why do we need a Slow Movement now?

We are moving towards an historical turning point. For at least 150 years everything has been getting faster, and for the most part speed was doing us more good than harm in that time. But in recent years we’ve entered the phase of diminishing returns. Today we are addicted to speed, to cramming more and more into every minute. Every moment of the day feels like a race against the clock, a dash to a finish line that we never seem to reach. This roadrunner culture is taking a toll on everything from our health, diet and work to our communities, relationships and the environment.

The credit crunch and global recession are the final proof that the way we have been living is unsustainable. The pursuit of fast growth, fast profits and fast consumption has brought the world to its knees. The time for the Slow Movement has come.

What inspired you to write In Praise of Slowness?

My life had become an endless race against the clock. I was always in a hurry, scrambling to save a minute here, a few seconds there. My wake-up call came when I caught myself toying with the idea of buying a collection of One-Minute Bedtime Stories. Yes, Snow White in 60 seconds. Suddenly it hit me: my rushaholism has got so out of hand that I’m even willing to speed up those precious moments with my children at the end of the day. There has to be a better way, I thought, because living in fast forward is not really living at all. That’s why I began investigating the possibility of slowing down.

Can everyone benefit from the Slow revolution?

Yes, slowing down is not just a luxury for the rich. It is, in essence, a mindset. Many of the things that make up a Slow life are available to most people. Those on lower incomes can cook simple meals at home and eat them at the table with the TV switched off; they can choose to use their technology in a more balanced way; they can resist the temptation to speed-read bedtime stories to their children; they can avoid over-packing their social schedules by saying No to some things; they don’t have to over-schedule their children with activities; they don’t have too drive fast; and so on.

What will a Slow world look like?

It will be a world that is healthy, happy and humane. But you have to realistic. I am no utopian. I am a skeptic by nature. I don’t believe we will ever create a world where everyone does everything at the right speed and no one ever feels rushed. That’s just a fantasy. The world is too complex and interconnected for that. It’s impossible in a world where we have to interact with others. Impatience is also part of being human. I suspect even the Dalai Lama rushes unnecessarily sometimes! Heck, even I forget to slow down from time to time. I face a barrage of requests to give speeches, do interviews, etc. from all over the world every day and it’s hard not to get caught up in the frenzy. But at least our starting point should be to seek what musicians call the tempo giusto and to expect others to do so too.

What do you hope readers will take away from In Praise of Slowness?

I hope that they will pause and reflect on how they lead their lives and how their lives affect the people and the world around them. I guess what I really want is for readers to grasp the very counter-cultural idea that the best way to survive and thrive in the fast-paced modern world is not to speed up, but to slow down. And it seems to be working. Every day I open up my inbox and find a few emails from readers around the world who say the book has changed their lives. It’s exciting, and humbling.

Why do you think the Slow Movement has been so fast to take off in Europe and not the United States?

The two places are culturally different. As a frontier society, the US combines a natural restlessness with a belief that the future will be better than today. With a lot of unhappy history behind them, Europeans are more world-weary – and therefore in less of a hurry to rush off and embrace the future.

The US is also a younger society, and the young are usually more inclined to go fast.

The American emphasis on the individual over the collective can also lead to more speed. After all, one thing that slows us down is relationships – with family, friends, neighbors, communities.

I think the consumer culture has also gone further in the US. And that means the pressure to work, spend, and then work more is stronger there than in Europe.

How does the Slow Movement intersect with craftsmanship and making things by hand?

The world is full of stuff that fails to inspire or nourish – stuff that is made fast and delivers no more than a flash of instant gratification. Craftsmanship and making things by hand are an antidote to that – and both are a clear expression of the Slow philosophy.

I suspect the principles of Slow Making will sound very familiar to the Etsy community. They include using materials and resources in a way that respects the environment; making things by hand on a small scale; promoting diversity, eccentricity and real character rather than cookie-cutter products that look the same all over the world. Slow objects connect us to the person who made them; they have a story behind them.

Slow is also about the long-term, which means thinking hard about what happens to a product when it comes to the end of its life-cycle – can it be recycled, reused, reinvented?

In a culture of rampant consumerism, the only thing that matters is the end product. Nowadays, though, people realize that the process that created the product matters too.

Thanks Carl! We so enjoyed having you! For more Slow-inspired reading and items, visit Slow Planet. For further resources on the Slow Movement, check out these helpful and informative links.

Slow Food Gifts | Gardening and Horticulture Gifts | Plants and Edibles Category

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