Slow Down.

Changing the pace of my life.

Yesterday I drove from Canterbury, back to our small flat in South London. My girlfriend and I were in Kent for a day trip. We spent most of the time reading at a small cafe on the high street, as well as exploring the town’s cathedral. On the way back she played Seattle folk music mixed in with Joe Hisaishi’s soundtracks from Howl’s Moving Castle.

Outside the car, the sun was setting. We could see endless frosty countryside. The warm lights of cars lit the road ahead of us. It reminded me of the candles we saw in the crypts of the church, earlier that day.

I usually get deathly impatient on transport. Like physically sick. My head starts to ache. It happens when I’m stuck in traffic. I can’t even take rides on the tube which last more than ten minutes.

And yet, that day, I really didn’t mind the two hour drive in the sunset. In fact, I would’ve been fine with it being twice as long. Maybe even twice that.

That got me thinking about the speed at which I do things. Somehow, I loved driving that car for a long time.

And yet usually, when I’m doing anything , I tend to try to do it quickly.

I am not sure why. It probably started when I was a kid doing school work. And then got worse as my course load at university got big. And so far, it’s insidiously carried on into my adult life:

• I want to make money quickly.

• In my job, I try to finish tasks quickly.

• I want to get a better body quickly.

• I want to do my chores quickly.

• I want to finish my science experiments quickly.

• I try to get through books quickly.

Any task I get sets off a bloodhound running around in my brain. That hound tells me that the task at hand needs to be finished, and now. The task needs to be destroyed as quickly as it was created.

Otherwise, I can’t be at ease.

But isn’t this kind of stupid? You see, I actually enjoy some of those tasks I wrote. I like my job. I like reading books. I like working out.

So, if what I want is a happy life, then - if I like something - shouldn’t I savour those moments while they last?

To make this even more extreme; if I like doing something, then shouldn’t I draw it out longer, if possible?

Shouldn’t I be doing things slowly?

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I think I should. This has started come out in different ways in the past half a year or so.

I intentionally sip my coffee extra slowly on the weekends. I want to draw it out. Now, I spend three hours on one cup of coffee in the local cafe on my street. I’ve been loyal to this cafe for long enough that the cafe owner doesn’t mind. I cherish those moments a lot, regardless of when I am alone or with friends.

This idea of ‘slowness’ to me is the relaxed, physical feeling you get when you take a deep breath and make your heart rate slowdown. A doctor once told me that I have the lowest resting heart beat he’s ever seen - 39 BPM. I now get hyperconscious when I’m trying get something and my heart rate starts to tick up. It’s a physical signal that I’m rushing,

When I exercise, I do an excruciatingly long warm up, with a lot of pacing around. Just spending time getting my body moving, and lengthening out that initial rush of endorphins you get when you start to exercise. Now, my exercise sessions can last easily for more than an hour.

And ironically, I think doing it this way has given me better results. My cumulative time moving is longer than just doing quick, overly intense sessions. I also enjoy it more, and am more eager to go, because my brain doesn’t seem to think that I’m going to die doing a HIIT work out. Even if I am being suboptimal, who cares.

I like, in general, to stare into space and just pace around, and so I’ve started to allow myself to do that more. I also have begun to let myself write more thoughts on my notepad when I’m doing something. Side effect: I write down more ideas.

I’m currently writing code to automate a tricky computational chemistry process for a bunch of different molecules. I’ve started to really spend time making this code easy to read and understand, and not rushing to get out features so quickly. I haven’t felt that kind of satisfaction in refining something since I made stop motion animations with clay when I was ten.

I now try to sleep sleep for nine hours, instead of eight. And I enjoy my time getting ready for bed. And getting ready in the morning.

I think this was what the author of ‘Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop’ was trying to get across. You have a set of quirky characters focused on doing what they enjoy, away from the famed pressure of South Korean society. The bookstore’s barista, is calmly focused on his craft. The book feels like it’s been written in no rush and it’s a pleasure to read.

Presumably if we become infinitely more productive due to automation, then we will probably start doing things less for the sake of getting them done, but rather from the act of doing it on its own. And so thinking consciously about the ‘pleasure of doing something’ is important.

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Career-wise, I’ve recently feeling anxious about people close to me getting promoted really quickly. I’ve so far been relatively behind. But then I thought about this idea of slowness. So far, I am enjoying myself - shouldn’t I wait until the proverbial ‘coffee’ has been savoured and sipped before aiming to the next career steep?

There is a logical chain of thought that a slower career can have better practical rewards than one that is rushed. For competitive industries, the more senior you become, the more expensive you are. The stakes are higher, so the more likely you are to get fired. Assuming that it’s hard to get a job after you’re fired, you’re more likely to get paid more over your whole career if you collect mid level pay for a longer time, saving promotion for later. As opposed to getting promoted quickly, getting fired too soon, and then having no where to go.

Think of this like a slow ramp built over a mile, ending up higher than a steep ramp that only spans a few feet.

In the start-up world, there’s a motto of ‘move fast and break things’. But I really don’t think that this applies to everything. If you’re a surgeon, you only get one shot at human life. Wouldn’t you rather a surgeon have gone through a lot of slow, considerate training before attempting to operate?

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I don’t think that the ‘vibe’ of this argument is necessarily new. There has been a counter culture in literature, online and video espousing living off grid. On YouTube you have the ‘anti-work’ influencers like Joshua Fluke.

I’m also working through a book called ‘Slow Productivity’ by Cal Newport. That talks about not rushing, to get the best results.

But both of those ideas don’t really match up with what I’m trying to say in this essay. I’m not anti-work at all. And I’m not even really thinking of productivity either.

I guess what I’m really saying is this. My downstairs neighbour used to be a national champion at chess. One of the best, still playing competitively. I followed him once to our local chess club in London. I asked him if he had memorised his chess openings and strategy, ready to go.

‘I used to’, he said.

‘Why have you stopped?’

‘Because I want to enjoy the game, not win it!’