the joy of slowness
May. 25th, 2005 09:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelidonThis morning I made my usual morning coffee (French press, very strong), but instead of tossing the beans into the ancient but very efficient Braun electric bean grinder I normally use, I used a hand-crank grinder that I bought online a few weeks ago (no, I have to admit, not one of the uber-cool English-made pass on to your grandkids heirloom varieties from Lehman's. but a $30 Chinese knock-off from Overstock.com, *sigh*, we all do what we can do...) Anyway, It took me maybe a couple of minutes instead of 10 seconds to grind my coffee beans, and what I got in return for those few precious minutes was the enjoyment of turning the crank, the lovely feel and sensation of the beans being ground by my hand's work, being able to tweak the grind wheel adjustment half-way through to make a slightly finer grind exactly to my taste, the small moral bonus of not using a small amount of electricity, being able to share the task with my son by allowing him the fun of turning the wheel at the end, and, just the ability to relax and enjoy the process, ironically making my morning a little less, not more rushed, for having chosen to take a few more minutes in that way.
Our culture glorifies, thrives on, insists on speed and efficiency. More and more speed, faster and faster, more and more "progress." Every "spare" moment of time, every "wasted" second should ideally be used effectively and productively, and moments of "idleness," which are not dedicated to some task, or which are dedicated to a task which could be done more quickly somehow, are frowned upon in a sense of almost moral condemnation. Every "extra" moment should be filled with something, or you aren't being efficient, you aren't doing "enough." More, more, more, do more, buy more, be more, consume more, la la la la goes the endless refrain, squeezing out spontaneity and enjoyment and the luscious, human dimension of life, turning our lives into interchangeable raw components of an impossible to satisfy industrial process. "Time is money," it is said, but we too often forget that "haste makes waste."
It's been said many times before, but one of the big promises of industrialization, of increasing "efficiency," of being able to produce wherever it's cheapest and then move things where needed, was supposed to be better lives, more leisure time, less time spent in involuntary labor. Clearly, that didn't happen. Where is all of that leisure time? Where is that promised enjoyment of the endless expansiveness to simply enjoy the life we all were supposed to have, with the machines we built and purchased doing so much of the unsafe, unpleasant, tedious drudgery, leaving us free to be artists, builders, thinkers? Why does it seem instead that we have to cram more and more into less and less time, running faster and faster just to keep from falling ever-further behind? Our lives are two to three times longer on average than they were less then 200 years ago, but we seem to spend more and more of that time rushing, hurried, working. With our affluence in material goods has come a desperate poverty in time.
I could digress here into a diatribe about the cult of unfettered capitalism, but instead will point out merely that we aren't where we thought we would be, and we definitely aren't where we want to be. The system is broken, the wheels are spinning faster and faster out of control, and us along with them, and every system has a limit beyond which it breaks, falls apart. Perhaps we can somehow learn to work with Time as an ally instead of an enemy, to enjoy and relish the passage of time and how we chose to use it, instead of cutting, dissecting, dismembering it, and our lives, into smaller and smaller bits -- seasons cut to days, carved into hours, nibbled into minutes, sliced into seconds and milliseconds and microseconds and nanoseconds and picoseconds and yoctoseconds (no kidding, that's .0000000000000000000000001 second, and we do have machines which can measure that small an interval).
Some things, many things, aren't any better for being faster. Many things, perhaps most things, are as much about the journey and the process as about getting to the goal. Sex isn't better for being over as quickly as possible, quite the contrary. When was the last time you spent "too much time" having sex? Thought so. Food isn't better for being produced or consumed faster -- the best meals are savored, relished, each bit filling your senses with luscious delight, not gulped down in between "more important" things. Creating works of art and craft, reading a book and absorbing the poetry, language or information in it, physical exercise, even birth and death themselves -- most things are best when they take the time they should, and all the worse for being rushed.
I may have spotlighted this before, but I highly recommend Carl Honore's book, In Praise of Slowness. There's a good blog review of it here. The pace we're in isn't the only way to live, nor the best, and we can make choices to change it. The international Slow Food movement is dedicated to bringing a more reasonable and sustainable pace to the production, preparation and consumption of food. Of course, it was started in Europe (Italy), but there's a rapidly-growing number of members here in the U.S.
We're all exhausted, we're trying to find ways to fit more things in our lives, to do more with less, there seems to be less and less time. especially "free time." Ironically, I think the answer to this problem is not to find ways of doing the tasks we need to do faster and more efficiently, rather it's to spend more time on what we choose to do, and at the same time to be more intentional about what we do, and how we do it. So I will choose to do less, and make what I do count more.
I "lost" five minutes this morning grinding my coffee beans in a hand-crank grinder. I gained the experience and enjoyment of of doing it, a little bit of time shared with my son, his enjoyment of the process with me, a certain sense of accomplishment, saving a little energy, and, perhaps incidentally, a better cup of coffee. I think I came out ahead.
Our culture glorifies, thrives on, insists on speed and efficiency. More and more speed, faster and faster, more and more "progress." Every "spare" moment of time, every "wasted" second should ideally be used effectively and productively, and moments of "idleness," which are not dedicated to some task, or which are dedicated to a task which could be done more quickly somehow, are frowned upon in a sense of almost moral condemnation. Every "extra" moment should be filled with something, or you aren't being efficient, you aren't doing "enough." More, more, more, do more, buy more, be more, consume more, la la la la goes the endless refrain, squeezing out spontaneity and enjoyment and the luscious, human dimension of life, turning our lives into interchangeable raw components of an impossible to satisfy industrial process. "Time is money," it is said, but we too often forget that "haste makes waste."
It's been said many times before, but one of the big promises of industrialization, of increasing "efficiency," of being able to produce wherever it's cheapest and then move things where needed, was supposed to be better lives, more leisure time, less time spent in involuntary labor. Clearly, that didn't happen. Where is all of that leisure time? Where is that promised enjoyment of the endless expansiveness to simply enjoy the life we all were supposed to have, with the machines we built and purchased doing so much of the unsafe, unpleasant, tedious drudgery, leaving us free to be artists, builders, thinkers? Why does it seem instead that we have to cram more and more into less and less time, running faster and faster just to keep from falling ever-further behind? Our lives are two to three times longer on average than they were less then 200 years ago, but we seem to spend more and more of that time rushing, hurried, working. With our affluence in material goods has come a desperate poverty in time.
I could digress here into a diatribe about the cult of unfettered capitalism, but instead will point out merely that we aren't where we thought we would be, and we definitely aren't where we want to be. The system is broken, the wheels are spinning faster and faster out of control, and us along with them, and every system has a limit beyond which it breaks, falls apart. Perhaps we can somehow learn to work with Time as an ally instead of an enemy, to enjoy and relish the passage of time and how we chose to use it, instead of cutting, dissecting, dismembering it, and our lives, into smaller and smaller bits -- seasons cut to days, carved into hours, nibbled into minutes, sliced into seconds and milliseconds and microseconds and nanoseconds and picoseconds and yoctoseconds (no kidding, that's .0000000000000000000000001 second, and we do have machines which can measure that small an interval).
Some things, many things, aren't any better for being faster. Many things, perhaps most things, are as much about the journey and the process as about getting to the goal. Sex isn't better for being over as quickly as possible, quite the contrary. When was the last time you spent "too much time" having sex? Thought so. Food isn't better for being produced or consumed faster -- the best meals are savored, relished, each bit filling your senses with luscious delight, not gulped down in between "more important" things. Creating works of art and craft, reading a book and absorbing the poetry, language or information in it, physical exercise, even birth and death themselves -- most things are best when they take the time they should, and all the worse for being rushed.
I may have spotlighted this before, but I highly recommend Carl Honore's book, In Praise of Slowness. There's a good blog review of it here. The pace we're in isn't the only way to live, nor the best, and we can make choices to change it. The international Slow Food movement is dedicated to bringing a more reasonable and sustainable pace to the production, preparation and consumption of food. Of course, it was started in Europe (Italy), but there's a rapidly-growing number of members here in the U.S.
We're all exhausted, we're trying to find ways to fit more things in our lives, to do more with less, there seems to be less and less time. especially "free time." Ironically, I think the answer to this problem is not to find ways of doing the tasks we need to do faster and more efficiently, rather it's to spend more time on what we choose to do, and at the same time to be more intentional about what we do, and how we do it. So I will choose to do less, and make what I do count more.
I "lost" five minutes this morning grinding my coffee beans in a hand-crank grinder. I gained the experience and enjoyment of of doing it, a little bit of time shared with my son, his enjoyment of the process with me, a certain sense of accomplishment, saving a little energy, and, perhaps incidentally, a better cup of coffee. I think I came out ahead.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-05-25 09:07 pm (UTC)Last I checked, they did have more of those grinders, and I have to say, it works great. I had to play with the grind setting, though -- at first I couldn't get it to grind the way I wanted to, and I realized I was expecting it to grind super-fast, like the electric one does. When I turned the wheel at a reasonable pace, and was willing to wait for the beans to gravity-feed slowly, it was all good.
The book is awesome. Let me know if you have any trouble getting a copy, I'l send you mine,