How slowly can you go?

Slow progress has always been accompanied by an air of prudence. “Adopt the pace of nature,” advised Ralph Waldo Emerson. “Her secret is patience.” A few thousand years and a change ago, Lao Tzu said something similar: “Nature is in no hurry, and yet everything is accomplished.”

These days, however, the paean to slowness has taken on a slightly more urgent tone. “We are on a bus that is increasingly speeding towards the abyss, celebrating every extra mile per hour as progress,” French economist Timothy Baric wrote in his article. Slow down or dieIt was released last May. “It’s madness. Maximizing growth is like stepping on the gas pedal with the absolute certainty of death in a social and ecological collapse.”

Japanese philosopher and economist Kohei Saito Covered a similar area in Slow downhis 2024 degrowth manifesto. Our obsession with GDP contributes not only to our collective suffering, but to our eventual demise. After all, economic growth may be seen as a societal manifestation of individual desire – we want, so we buy.

“We live in a cult of ultimate speed,” the psychotherapist and author wrote Francis Wheeler in In the Absence of the Ordinary: The Work of the Spirit in Times of Uncertaintya collection of articles. “A kind of obsession that consumes us with constant motion. Much has been lost in this frenetic devotion to speed.”

In the age of artificial intelligence, when the average person consumes… More information in one day More than anyone in the 15th century would do in a lifetime, one can see why slowness is essential. People are stuck in the rat race, living stressful, overly connected lives. However, slowing down on a systemic level is one thing, slowing down as an individual is quite another.

In the age of artificial intelligence, when the average person consumes more information in a single day than a person in the 15th century consumed in a lifetime, one can see why slowness is essential.

Can awareness help us take our foot off the gas pedal? Can personal practice have a tangible impact on the speed at which society moves?

Doing the situation to the situation

“Practicing mindfulness is definitely a tangible way to slow down,” says the mindfulness scientist. Andrew Olendzki. “If it is only for a short session, one intentionally steps out of the ‘doing’ mode to remain in the ‘being’ mode.”

Stuck in Being situation It has a tangible effect on our internal speedometer. “Practicing mindfulness is a way to retrain the breath to slow down in every way, and breathing rate is the most intuitive way to do this,” Olendzki says.

actually, research Long-term meditators appear to exhibit slower breathing rates than non-meditators. The ability to slow down physiologically when one is working in a higher register may bring a degree of intentionality to “fast-paced” endeavors. It can help us to embody the tortoise even though there are so many hares.

The ability to slow down physiologically when one is working in a higher register may bring a degree of intentionality to “fast-paced” endeavors. It can help us to embody the tortoise even though there are so many hares.

When this intentionality spreads through the body, it can spill over into the mind, providing a countercurrent to the speed at which modern life moves. It can teach us not only to slow down during common meditative practices, such as meditation, journaling, or yoga, but also to reach a slower pace in the middle of daily life, a time when we feel pressure to maintain forward momentum.

“For most people today, speed comes from external attachments: busy schedules, phones primed to notify you of every incoming message, and the basic tendency to ‘do too much’ in the modern lifestyle,” Olendzki says. “I think the pace at which one lives one’s life is a matter of habit, and like all habits they are learned. Much in our society encourages moving quickly, and I like to think that we still have some choice in how much we engage in this.”

Getting rid of our addiction to speed

So, in some ways, slowing down involves a kind of loss of what we have learned. We’ve become so accustomed to moving at the speed of information that we don’t realize that we don’t have to respond to every notification that vibrates in our pockets. Anthropologist Thomas Hyland Eriksen distinguished between “fast time”—writing an email or completing a report, and “slow time”—leisure activities such as creating art or sitting still. He noted that when fast time and slow time meet—the pressure of a deadline versus writing poetry—the fast time always wins. But when we notice this imbalance we can choose to prioritize slow time.

Mindfulness may support our efforts to slow down as much as it redirects us toward the rhythm of breathing, the rhythm of nature, and the workability of the mind.

We may need support in making this choice. Maybe that’s why books about it have appeared in the last couple of years Slow birds, Slow productivity, Slow funand Slow seasons– A guide to reconnecting with nature. In an age of abundance, those of us in privileged positions are not hungry for more but for less.

In this sense, Lao Tzu, Emerson, and Wheeler may be on to something when they advise us to take a cue from natural rhythms. In his book, Wheeler recalls his mentor, Clark Perry, placing his hand on a rock and noting that he was working at geological speed:

Geological speed, the rhythm of eons and millennia, is engraved deep in our bones. When we give ourselves the time and pace of quarantine, we enter into a deep memory of who we are, where we belong, and what is sacred. We remember the values ​​associated with this ancient rhythm, including patience, self-control, and reciprocity.

Mindfulness may support our efforts to slow down as much as it redirects us toward the rhythm of breathing, the rhythm of nature, and the workability of the mind. Whether or not this is able to address the political and economic issues plaguing society is questionable, but individuals who are able to bring about relief may help shape systems that prioritize it. After all, mindfulness isn’t about getting anywhere, getting ahead, or even arriving He – she.

“Be as aware as possible of the pace you are experiencing on any given day,” Wheeler wrote. “Try to notice what happens when you slow down and enter the flow of contact with daylight, wind, city sounds, birdsong, cricket, or silence.”

Life may be final, but our speed doesn’t have to be.