the map village street editors

Carl Honoré was living life in the fast lane and loving it. A journalist residing in London, he crammed as much into each day as he could, maximising every possible second, always on the lookout for some way to complete things in as little time as possible. Even reading his son bedtime stories was a race against the clock and he would proudly rush through a fairytale in a matter of minutes. But it was whilst reading a newspaper at an airport in Rome that Carl experienced a life-changing epiphany. Skimming the newspaper, he came across an article entitled The One-Minute Bedtime Story and, for a brief moment, it was the answer to all his prayers. His relief soon turned to horror, when it dawned on him that, in trying to make his life as fast as possible, he had lost sight of what mattered most – spending quality time with his three-year-old son. It was then that Carl decided that his way of life needed to change. In short, it needed to slow down.

Realising just how addicted he had become to a fast-paced lifestyle, where quantity far outweighed quality, Carl took a concerted look at his life to determine exactly how he could rediscover his ‘inner tortoise’. In doing so, he began to sow the seeds of thought that would not only eventually bloom into the best-selling book In Praise of Slow (now published in 30 languages), but would also be partly responsible for helping to awaken a consciousness within 21st-century society to form what is now known as the Slow Movement.

“I tried to look at how many things I was trying to cram into my life in an average week and realised that I’d been trying to cram in too much, so I decided to cut back,” Carl explains. “That very simple idea of less is more is at the core of what Slow is about.” But the process of slowing down wasn’t one that occurred overnight. In fact, Carl points out, it’s something he’s still working on. “One of the ironies nowadays is that we’re all so impatient that we even want to slow down fast,” he laughs. “I think that slowing down is a process that never ends. It’s a bit like being a recovering alcoholic in some ways. You always have to be on guard because it’s a natural human instinct – especially in a fast-forward world with technology and internet everywhere – to go too fast and want to speed up. For me, when I had that wake-up call that I was just racing through my life instead of actually living it, I thankfully didn’t fall into that trap of trying to slow down fast. I think I realised that it was something deeper – that it wasn’t just a simple lifestyle shift that I read about in a newspaper and would be all done and dusted in a matter of days. There were a lot more layers to drill down through. For me it was, and continues to be, a kind of process to get back in touch with my inner tortoise.”

Working in the field of journalism in a throbbing metropolis like London was no doubt a sinister influence and willing contributor to Carl’s fast-paced addiction. Like that bad-influencing friend who pushes you to have that extra drink, the city’s bewitching cultural landscape and endless things to do beckoned him to indulge more and more. And the faster he went, the more he was drawn into the cult of speed. Social events each night, sporting activities, work opportunities – so many things to do, so little time. Finally, he learned the key to freeing himself of the addiction: simply saying no. “I began saying no to work projects, which would have been unthinkable to me before,” Carl explains. “It was still a scary thing to do, but pretty early on I realised that saying ‘no’ doesn’t close a door forever – it actually does the opposite.”

While his family was relieved when he first announced his intention of slowing down, others who knew Carl well were slightly sceptical. “There were quite a lot of raised eyebrows and a lot of snickering because I’ve always been seen in my circles as quite a fast person. For me to be embracing Slow seems faintly absurd or even dishonest,” he laughs. “But in many ways it makes perfect sense in the fact that, by being the person I am, this message is more easily received by a lot of people from me, rather than from a Buddhist monk sitting on a hill somewhere saying the same thing. I think it helps that I’m living in a fast city and I play fast sports and I talk fast. People had to get used to the fact that I had to start saying no to things like social events, so that took a little explanation. And at work I had to explain that just because I was slowing down, it didn’t mean I was going to miss my deadline.”

Carl admits that the fast-paced field of journalism, where deadlines are a requisite part of every day, is a challenging profession in which to slow down, but that it’s not impossible. “Slow, ultimately, is a state of mind,” he muses. “You don’t have to leave a city and go and live in a shack in the outback and grow organic vegetables in order to slow down. You can be slow in Tokyo, New York, London and Toronto. And you can be slow in any job – granted, some are harder than others, but you can do it.” With a background in the ‘objective’ world of print journalism, Carl confesses to being terrified of putting his own thoughts and opinions on the page when he first wrote the book. “It takes a lot of courage to put my ideas out there and be sure about them,” he admits candidly. “In some ways there’s a safety in journalism in that I never wrote columns or put myself in my articles. My natural inclination is to show rather than tell and, even now, I don’t like the idea of standing on a soapbox and telling people what they should think and how to live their lives. The hardest thing for me has been to prescribe ways of doing things to people. In some ways I’ve always struggled with that in my books.”

In Praise of Slow is a light-hearted yet poignant look at modern society’s obsession with getting as much done, as quickly as possible. From work, exercise and socialising, to diet, family relationships and even sex, Carl says, we’re always looking for ways to save time and squeeze an extra few minutes out of our day. As he embarks on a pilgrimage of self-discovery in search of that inner tortoise, the book depicts Carl’s journey as a self-confessed recovering ‘speed-aholic’. But what makes the book a far more inspiring and refreshing read than most other books of the genre is Carl’s self-deprecating introspection, as he becomes the lovably flawed protagonist searching for the secret of Slow. As he looks back through history, and studies the habits of society over the past few decades, he gradually uncovers the thriving pockets of a culture of Slow that has been bubbling under the surface of modern society for the past decade or so. From Slow Food, to Slow Cities, Carl discovers that increasing amounts of people across the world are shunning their speed-driven habits for the opportunity to live a life of value that focuses on enjoying the simple pleasures.

Indeed, it’s the simple pleasures that inspire Carl the most. “I really just take inspiration from the small things,” he intones. “Whether it’s seeing someone helping someone else to cross the road or sharing a laugh with someone on the train, I really find it’s the little stuff that inspires me. It’s the building of all the little things that create the big things in life. I like to stay close to the ground, and when you’re close to the ground, that’s when you see the small things. Those are the things that excite me and make me laugh.”

As he learns to discover joy in the small things – proud that at 40 years old he has still retained his sense of humour – finding peace is something that now comes very easily. “For me, cooking is the ultimate Zen experience. I love everything about cooking from the simple rhythmic chopping to the sound of garlic sizzling. I like the experience of cooking for other people and sitting down at a table and sharing things with them,” he shares. “I also do meditation, which is peaceful in an obvious way, and I love being outdoors, but in a lot of ways it’s when I am cooking that I am most at peace.”

His next book, Under Pressure: Rescuing Our Children from the Culture of Hyper-Parenting (recently released in Australia), focuses on teaching parents to allow children to enjoy childhood the way it should be; to not fill their days with too many extracurricular activities that they can’t just enjoy being a kid. For Carl, spending time with his kids and family no longer takes a back seat, and revelling in these gentle moments is where he now finds life’s beauty. “My dream now is simply that the small stuff continues to fire my imagination and to make me laugh and feel happy to be alive.”

Interview By Mikki Brammer