Slow Down it's Good for You!

In Praise of Slowness is one of the most thought provoking books I have read in quite a while. Carl Honoré begins as an optimistic skeptic to the slow movement and takes you on his journey to mild believer in the core tenets of slow living. I was first introduced to the ideas of slow living by a friend of mine that at that time was an amazing cook as a hobby. He is now the owner/manager/lead chef at one of the hippest and most influential restaurants in Lincoln, Nebraska. His restaurant, Bread&Cup, is founded on many of the ideas of the slow food movement as well as slow living. Kevin himself is a slow paced, thought-filled, always contemplating larger issues kind of man, and I always admired that about him. To give you a glimpse of his life in the time I spent with him he; made his own cheese from bacterial cultures he ordered online, taught me to make bread, recorded his own album in a basement studio he built, grew an amazing garden from started plants he grew in his basement during the Lincoln winters, read non-stop, composed original electronic music (down-tempo of course) and managed to always have a new recipe in the works. You may be thinking that doesn't sound like slow living but it was. That was the beauty of Kevin and the ultimate goal of the slow movement. Slow living is not about being boring or resting all the time, or about having a low stress job. It is about taking time to enjoy life. This means savoring your meals, meals you made at home, with friends, and enjoyed for hours over conversation. It means never rushing in love, taking time to enjoy your spouse. It means listening to Beethoven's 7th Symphony 75 times and on the 75th time hearing that small viola part you never noticed that changes everything you thought about the piece before that moment. It means reading slower, and discussing what you read with people. It means riding your bike, or riding the bus, or God-forbid walking somewhere.
I can't say I am the new leader of the slow movement in Tucson, but I can say I am making strides to live at my pace, to say no to things I don't want to be doing and to spend long amounts of time in the things I do want to be doing. Nothing that Carl Honoré says is ridiculous but our American mind wants to think it is. Slowing down and enjoying life almost seems unpatriotic, but no one has ever accused me of being a patriot.