Slowing down: Why a more contemplative and simpler approach to #life is being adopted as a personal philosophy

The other day, I happened to speak to some graduates who were a couple of months into their first jobs. While some of them enjoyed their work, a few others didn’t. But all of them, including the ones who loved their workplace, were clear about quitting their jobs very soon. The reasons weren’t only about low pay, high rentals or the chaotic traffic. The biggest bummer, they all said in unison, was the lack of a work-life balance. One of them summed it up perfectly: she said her life’s motto wasn’t about working hard and partying harder, but about slowing down and savouring life. At that moment, I was reminded of American poet Mary Oliver’s lines: “Wherever I am, the world comes after me. It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it.”

While one can’t make a sweeping assumption about the aspirations of today’s youth, at least there are some whose approach to life and work is different. It is shaped not by an ambition to quickly climb the corporate ladder, but by a yearning for a slower, meaningful life. This perspective carries some weight in the light of the recent debates on toxic work culture, amplified by the death of a young Ernst & Young employee in Pune and the push for a 70-hour workweek by some industry bigwigs.

Slow Movement

Slowing down, or embracing “slow living”, is not a new-fangled philosophy. Thinkers like Martin Heidegger, Henry David Thoreau or David Foster Wallace have advocated a more contemplative and simpler approach to life. In modern times, and especially the post-Covid era, many have adopted this as a personal philosophy. But stepping on the pause button need not be a wilful protest against life in the fast lane. Carl Honore, Canadian writer and evangelist for the Slow Movement, asserts that slow is not anti-speed, but doing something at the correct speed. In his book, ‘In Praise of Slowness’, Honore writes that the Slow Movement is not a “Luddite attempt to drag the whole planet back to some pre-industrial utopia. On the contrary, the movement is made up of people like you and me, people who want to live better in a fast-paced, modern world. That is why the Slow philosophy can be summed up in a single word: balance. Be fast when it makes sense to be fast, and be slow when slowness is called for”.

The movement emerged as a reaction to the fast-paced, high-stress lifestyles that have become dominant in modern society, where efficiency, speed and productivity often take precedence over well-being, fulfilment and connection. Buddhist monk and pacifist Thich Nhat Hanh has a word for this mad rush: habit energy. He says, “We have to learn the art of stopping — our thinking, our habit energies, our forgetfulness, the strong emotions that rule us.”

Memory and the moment

Is slowness then about lingering in the moment and of being actively conscious of it? In her Booker-winning novel ‘Flights’, Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk observes: “The most precious moments are the ones that defy any kind of acceleration, any increase in intensity.”

Milan Kundera explores the correlation between speed and memory in his novel ‘Slowness’, which is perhaps an ode to this philosophy. Kundera writes: “The degree of slowness is directly proportional to the intensity of memory; the degree of speed is directly proportional to the intensity of forgetting.” He further expands on the impact of speed in modern life by juxtaposing the runner with the motorcyclist. He writes: “Speed is the form of ecstasy the technical revolution has bestowed on man. As opposed to a motorcyclist, the runner is always present in his body, forever required to think about his blisters, and his exhaustion; when he runs he feels his weight, his age, more conscious than ever of himself and of his time of life. This all changes when man delegates the faculty of speed to a machine: from then on, his own body is outside the process, and he gives over to a speed that is noncorporeal, nonmaterial, pure speed, speed itself, ecstasy speed.”

Slow Design

Another offshoot of the Slow Movement, it looks at designing products thoughtfully, responsibly and sustainably. Coined by design activist and academic Alastair Faud-Luke in 2002, the term encompasses a design process that keeps the user and the planet in mind, and also a biodegradable future in place. Slow fashion and interiors also follow this cradle-to-cradle philosophy, aimed at reducing carbon footprint.

Slow Education

This too rejects the standardised approach to learning and analytical, stressed environments for education. It foregrounds a creative, collaborative and carefully constructed curriculum that favours unhurried and reflective learning. Here, depth is preferred over breadth of knowledge. Similarly, slow parenting ensures children aren’t treated as busy little adults, crammed with school work and too many activities. The idea is to let kids explore their world at their pace and to let them grow up as, well, kids.

Slow Cinema

Characterised by long takes, minimalistic narratives, exploration of mundanity and memory, and an emphasis on atmosphere over action, slow cinema challenges conventional storytelling techniques, encouraging audiences to engage deeply with the visual and emotional landscapes presented on screen. The time of the film is a time of the soul, said Andrei Tarkovsky, often hailed as the precursor to slow cinema. G Aravindan is considered its pioneer in India, with films like ‘Kummatty’ and ‘Chidambaram’.

Bridge the disconnect

Slowness, as a philosophy, has taken on the role of an antidote. The Slow Movement originated primarily as a reaction to fast food culture, but has grown in relevance as people seek alternatives to the high-pressure environments that dominate much of modern life. In the late 1980s, Italian activist Carlo Petrini believed that the globalised, McDonaldised food culture needed to be replaced by a globalisation of food diversity and agroecological food practices. He envisioned a return to homemade, slow-cooked meals prepared from local ingredients, as a way of reconnecting with traditions and nature. In ‘Slow Food Nation’, Petrini wrote, “We are enslaved by speed and have all succumbed to the same insidious virus: ‘Fast Life’, which disrupts our habits, pervades the privacy of our homes, and forces us to eat fast foods. To escape this, we must slow down and pay greater attention to the process of eating.” His concern was that the “umbilical cord” linking consumers with farmers had been severed, symbolising the disconnect between people and the sources of their sustenance. Being slow is about controlling the rhythms of one’s life, he said, adding, “What we are fighting for is the right to determine our own tempos.”

Fair, clean food

Navdanya, an organisation founded by environmental activist Vandana Shiva, introduced the concept of Slow Food cafes in India, where healthy, nutritious food made from traditional grains and seasonal ingredients is served. Navdanya, like the Slow Movement, sprouted in the 1980s as a Gandhian response to the politics of violence and religion in Punjab and the industrial disaster in Bhopal. In Shiva’s words, Navdanya was born out of “the search for nonviolent farming, which protects biodiversity, the Earth and our small farmers”. Aimed at conserving indigenous seed varieties, protecting traditional food cultures and discouraging agricultural patents, Navdanya strives to bring nutrition back into food. It promotes food sovereignty and sustainable agriculture through its network of 150 seed banks across 22 states in India, and is also part of the Terra Madre Slow Food movement.

Terra Madre is a network of food communities that connects farmers, breeders, cooks, food artisans and activists and consumers to provide good, clean and fair food.

Reflect, recalibrate

At its core, the Slow Movement emphasises quality over quantity, encouraging people to take time to enjoy life’s moments, make thoughtful decisions, and prioritise well-being. As a philosophy, it has also influenced travel, art, media, design, entertainment, fashion, education, parenting and even urban planning. In the realms of work and education, the Slow Movement advocates a recalibration of values, foregrounding creativity, depth and reflective practice over speed and measurable outcomes. Similarly, the concept of Slow Cities (Cittaslow) instantiates a radical rethinking of urbanism. These cities, again first rooted in Italy, offer a sustainable, community-oriented alternative to frenetic urban spaces. Slow cities privilege the local over the global, the human over the mechanical, the sustainable over the extractive. It is a movement towards cities as the loci of lived experience rather than nodes of production and consumption.

Looking inward

When the pandemic caused the world to pause in its tracks, there were many upheavals and challenges. But it also offered an opportunity to pay attention to lives and recalibrate. Slowness accords one that luxury. As Honore says, “Speed is often an instrument of denial, a way of avoiding deeper problems. Instead of facing up to what is going wrong in our lives, we distract ourselves with speed and busyness.”

It’s this argument that Satyajit Ray lobbed back at critics who questioned the unhurried pace of his iconic movie ‘Pather Panchali’. “The cinematic material dictated a style to me, a very slow rhythm determined by nature, the landscape, the country. The script had to retain some of the rambling quality of the novel because that in itself contained a clue to the authenticity: life in a poor Bengali village does ramble,” said Ray.

In the 1850s, Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen popularised the term friluftsliv, which translates to open-air life. It encourages people to spend time outdoors and connect with nature. This philosophy is also embedded into Norwegian laws and government policies. For instance, it is legal for Norwegians to roam around or spend the night in nature, regardless of who owns the land, so long as certain guidelines are followed and one respects the surroundings. It is a philosophy that encourages you to quieten your pace and reconnect with your inner selves as well.

Sitting still

Travel writer Pico Iyer expresses similar sentiments in his book, ‘The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere’. He writes: “To me, the point of sitting still is that it helps you see through the very idea of pushing forward; indeed, it strips you of yourself, as of a coat of armour, by leading you into a place where you’re defined by something larger.”

Iyer says that every time he takes a trip, the experience acquires meaning when he gets back and sits still, converting the sights he has seen into lasting insights.

Within the sphere of mobility, “slow travel” privileges immersion over consumption and depth over superficiality. Slow travel is about enjoying the journey as much as the destination. It is about experiencing, understanding and respecting local communities and their cultures, cuisines and traditions. It is about taking the roads less travelled, lingering more on one using less vehicles and being mindful about carbon emissions, commodifying tourist destinations and overuse of resources. Iyer adds, “In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing could feel more luxurious than paying attention.”

In his book ‘Walden’, American philosopher Henry David Thoreau writes: “Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand.” While ‘Walden’ is as much a thesis on labour, self-reliance and individualism, it is also an affirmation of the benefits of slow living.

Going slow is a personal choice. After all, it doesn’t hurt to take a pause and pay attention to what we may be missing. As Hanh says, “Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the earth revolves — slowly, evenly, without rushing towards the future; live the actual moment. Only this moment is life.” Carpe diem, seize the day or the moment, so goes the Latin phrase. Slow living nudges you to also stay in that moment and savour it to your soul’s content.

— The writer is a Bengaluru-based contributor