THIS IS A SLOW BLOG. It is updated when I have something to say, rather than trying to say something just to update the blog. Learn more about Slow Blogging here. Since this is a Slow Blog, may I suggest you subscribe by RSS by clicking here, or subscribe to receive email updates by clicking here (to learn more about RSS click here for an FAQ).

Originally inspired by Tom Hodgkinson’s Country Diary and the excellent Orwell Diaries, this blog, when it was over at wordpress.com was entitled the “Deckchair Diaries” and was a more personal journal of my journey on the path to slowing down.

Some readers have requested a bit more of a personal touch on this site, with details of what I have been getting up to in my (mostly) slow lifestyle, to show “slow living” in action. So, I thought I would revive the style of a more personal journal as an occasional entry here on Tortoise Knows Best, sharing with you what I have been up to and how I have been implementing (or at least trying to!) the Slow Philosophy.

I have been doing a lot of staring out of the window recently. I have become a terrible “inside of the window” type of gardener, time, inclination and finances have stopped me getting out there and doing some much needed pottering around. I fancy growing some veg, but once again, left it a bit too late…

(Although I stumbled across this from the brilliant Hugh from River Cottage – the River Cottage cookbook is a must for any idlers bookshelf – and contemplating giving it a go – as a bit of cheat and headstart…)

I love this time of year, but nature moves fast, giving me a feeling that we are rushing towards summer. It is hard to take a step back and take it all in and so easy to get caught up in the torrent.

Every day a new plant seems to bloom, blossom, flower or grow leaves (sometimes all at once), it is too easy to miss something and next thing you know it has done its thing. I see plants and flowers and birds and insects, I notice new sounds and sights and smells. This time of year is really is an orgy for your senses if you switch on and stay mindful. I must learn the name of things.

Nature, being involved with nature and learning to flow with it (it’s changing weather and seasons) really is essential to the slow lifestyle.

I spend as much time as I can watching the clouds go by, trying to make shapes in them. Dali called this the paranoiac-critical method, which was his description of how we make shapes and faces in abstract images such as seeing Jesus face in a piece of toast. For more information on cloud spotting (an excellent idle pursuit), I highly recommend the Cloud Appreciation Society.

Although the time I have to give to Idle pursuits has been somewhat cut down recently. Work wise I seem to be working longer and longer hours, which is no way for an idler to behave!

Luckily I enjoy what I do to make money (and as Confucius said “Choose a job you love and you will have to work again”).

Like many self-employed people, the recession has effected my work. Although I have managed to weather the worst of the financial storm I have been forced (like those self employed people that have also survived) to be creative; developing different ways of doing things and alternative income streams. It is a bit like chucking mud at the wall to see what stick a lot of the time. So far I have had the most success (and fun) with teaching people to be “Psychological Entertainers” in the vein of Derren Brown, Banachek, etc as well as teaching the skills of those fictional characters Patrick Jane in the “Mentalist” and Cal Lightman in “Lie to Me” (although these are fictional characters, their abilities are based on real life skills), if you want to learn more about that, please feel free to visit the website www.psykologika-esoterika.com.

I am being philosophical about the whole thing, this recession has made me be much more aware of my financial situation and I have made the effort to live much more frugality (“just in case”). I am enjoying seeing how little money I can get away with spending and it is very illuminating seeing how much money I frittered away.

And things are looking up…

It has been a few weeks since the election here in the UK and I must admit to being optimistic of the result, we have an unprecedented and revolutionary coalition and I wish them all the best (more cynical – and revolutionary – friends of mine have already written them off, but, since this is the system we have right now, I am hoping for the best. Call me daft and optimistic if you want…).

Forgetting political ideology for a moment, I like David Cameron, he seems very “Slow” to me. I first warmed to him because of this chat that he had with President (or Senator, at the time) Obama, about how to govern, then in the run up to the election and in the Conservative manifesto he spoke about “Big Society“, community is a central tenant of the Slow Manifesto (I think the slow movement is essentially anarchic in its political viewpoint), and then when he became PM, the first thing he did was ban cell phones from cabinet meetings!

My right knee has been playing up which has curtailed my idle exercise routine. My daily Tai Chi and Chi Kung practice has been effected (and I have almost got out of the habit of doing anything) I have had to give up running. It has even started to affect my daily mediation practice, evening kneeling using a stool to support myself it really aches. I have been doing the manly thing and ignoring it, but I have noticed how easy it is to use it as an excuse to just sit on the sofa, and how much more twitchy, distracted and lethargic I have become in such a short space of time. So, I have begun a process of rehabilitation. Hopefully with a bit of rest and recuperation, skilful strapping and painkillers I will be back embracing the tiger and repulsing the monkey (as well as being able to sit without the distracting ache in meditation) very soon.

I am currently re-reading “How to be Free” by Tom Hodgkinson, I have to admit to not finishing it first time round, I got distracted by something else. It is a very interesting discussion of the Medieval lifestyle and how we can reintroduce and emulate that in current times to free ourselves from some of the bonds of modern living.

Anyway, I am off to watch the rain out of the window.

See you again soon,
Matt

THIS IS A SLOW BLOG. It is updated when I have something to say, rather than trying to say something just to update the blog. Learn more about Slow Blogging here. Since this is a Slow Blog, may I suggest you subscribe by RSS by clicking here, or subscribe to receive email updates by clicking here (to learn more about RSS click here for an FAQ).

One of the reasons I stopped blogging so regularly was because, well, I was running out of things to say.

You see, the Slow life is the simple life is the easy life.

And, so in my quest to become slower, unflustered, uncomplicated and uncluttered, I often found that I was practicing the same things over and over again, getting a bit better each day.

This doesn’t sit too well with the blogging principle, which requires lots of content, regularly.

A lot of blogs I have seen on simple living, minimalism and related topics, are ironically complex (and repetitive) and not really simple or minimal at all! I can only assume that is to try and keep up with the current blogging paradigm of regular content, regardless of quality.

Slow being what it is, if I did a blog every day, or even every week it would soon become repetitive or I would be tempted to over complicate the issue just to give me something to write about.

This is in direct opposition of my personal philosophy of stripping everything, as much as possible, back to its bare bones, by asking the question “what absolutely has to be there?”

Why? Well I am clutter monkey, I tend towards over-complication if I am left to my own devices (I ALWAYS pack to much when I go on holiday!) and it takes a lot of disciple for me to keep things simple (it was one of the reasons I got involved in the Slow movement in the first place).

As Einstein is quoted as having said (whether he actually said it or not I don’t know): “Keep everything as simple as possible, but no simple.”

So in this spirit of simplicity, what are the 3 keys to a slow and happy life?

Well, as I said in my previous post (here), I believe that everything comes from cultivating the slow mindset or “tortoise mind”.

So these 3 keys are the keys to creating your tortoise mind. Once you cultivate them you will find yourself able to more easily embrace the slow life, the minimalist approach and simple living.

1. Mindfulness

This really is the key to slowing down. Life is only happening in the NOW, yet how often do you really pay attention to the present moment? How often are you on autopilot or thinking about what you are doing tonight or tomorrow, or lost in a memory?
How often do you get hung up on things, wave the ride of emotion; panic, fear nervousness?

Learn to embrace the now, to lose your self in the moment, to appreciate the little things:

Really focus on the food your eat and notice the explosion of flavours your often miss, the texture, the sensation, the emotions and memories it conjures up….

When in the shower, focus on the sensation of the water splashing against your skin, the smell of the shower gel…

You get the idea?

2. Gratitude

“Poverty is not the absence of goods but rather the overabundance of desire”

Plato

There is an interesting psychological phenomenon called habitation, which basically means if we see, do, or experience the same thing over and over again, we stop paying attention to it.

This process is what our modern consumer culture relies on. It makes us acutely aware of what we haven’t got and makes subtle changes to “this years model” to keep us wanting the new and exciting versions.

One of the fastest ways to overcome this process is to be consciously grateful for what we have. Every day make a list of at least 10 things you really appreciate in your life, this can be anything from the fact you have a house, to reminding yourself why you bought the car/watch/TV/whatever that your bought (it can be something really simple, basic or seemingly silly, it doesn’t matter, as long as you are grateful for it). Really feel the gratitude. You will find you will become more mindful and crave new things and experiences less and less.

3. Compassion

The final key to a slow and happy life is to be compassionate to our fellow wo/man.

This doesn’t mean being a drip or a push over, it is about recognising that everyone is doing the best with what they have got and making the best decision they can at the time according to the information and criteria they are using (no matter how stupid or annoying, or “wrong” it may seem to you) and that you have done stupid things in your past and will again in the future.

You don’t have to become an over emotional lovey, who runs round hugging everyone one, you just need to forgive people.

It really is that simple, just forgive them.

That will free yourself up of all the stress, anger and rage about things you can do nothing about. Just stop, take a deep breath, say (silently in your own head) “I forgive you” and relax. See how good that makes you feel?

Once you have got the hang of forgiving peoples wrongs (or perceived wrongs!) against you, you will find you will become more patient, mindful and often more polite (which is a very good thing).

So there we have it, the 3 simple keys to slowing down. If you just practice these 3 keys each day, you will find you will be Slower and happier in no time!

Matt

PS, I have added a merchandise and recommended reading list to the “Buy Stuff” page, go check it out.

 THIS IS A SLOW BLOG. It is updated when I have something to say, rather than trying to say something just to update the blog. Learn more about Slow Blogging here. Since this is a Slow Blog, may I suggest you subscribe by RSS by clicking here, or subscribe to receive email updates by clicking here (to learn more about RSS click here for an FAQ).

When I initially came across the slow movement, idling, and associated fields, it wasn’t Slow Food, or Slow Travel, or even Slow Sex, or any of those external activities that caught my attention, it was the philosophy behind the slow movement and the mindset you developed from embracing that philosophy; the psychology of slow, or the “tortoise mind”.

I was fascinated with the idea of how, by slowing down your thoughts and actions, you become more relaxed, happier, less stressful, but also, in some (if not all) cases, more productive and more “successful” (whatever that word means to you) too.

I saw developing a tortoise mind, to become an “idler” or a slow person as a key and essential ingredient in not just becoming a happier, but a better person.

I saw slowing down as an “inside out” rather than “outside in” process. By becoming a “tortoise minded” individual I felt that then the rest of the elements of the Slow Movement, such as travel, food, etc would naturally become an extension of who you are, rather than trying to embrace these activities to try and slow yourself down (which is a bit like trying to stop an out of control truck doing 150mph by grabbing hold of the tailgate – it probably won’t work…). When you have developed your “tortoise mind” you will start to notice how unnecessary your old fast habits were and you will naturally be drawn to slower way of doing things.

So, I developed in my mind a sort of archetype of the ideal slow person or idler, the sort of person who can be centred and gathered and unflustered even the fastest and most hectic of surroundings.

Then I had a goal to aim for and I could take my training and skills in psychology, coaching, NLP, hypnosis, mindfulness, etc and start develop exercise and techniques to hopefully get me (and other people) to achieve that ideal.

Some people are naturally like this; I am sure you have seen them. I usually see them at airports, where you have been up at an ungodly hour to catch your flight, you are tired, disorientated and grumpy, you have been hauling your luggage around (you have probably packed far too much, but forgotten something essential), you have been queuing up, waiting your turn, getting bored and frustrated and sick of being battered, bumped into and treated like a total idiot.

Then they turn up. The idler. The archetypal “tortoise minded” person.  They casually swan in with the smallest luggage you have ever seen, calm and unflustered, they are well dressed, relaxed and look damn good. They are smiling, happily and annoyingly polite. Somehow they end up ahead of you in the queue (but didn’t push in), they seem to get the best (or only) seats left in the airport lounge (but are willing to give it up to someone else more in need of the seat, just to find another seat a few minutes later!), the fastest queue and, at the gate, you notice they have been upgraded! They take this with the calm polite modesty and remain pleasant to the end. All their movements are graceful, calm, measured and seemingly frustratingly slow (they stroll nonchalantly along), yet they seem to get everywhere before you, who has been rushing and flapping…

And, if you happen to be going to the same location as them on holiday, you notice they are always perfectly suitably turned out (how did they manage that with the tiny luggage?), fresh, alert, polite and get the last sun lounger!

Don’t you just hate them (because you want to be like them)?!

I am still working on it; that is my ideal goal (at the moment). The reason I was drawn to the slow philosophy was because I was a flustered, twitchy, super-fast person (and it was doing me no good at all), so I have quite a long way to go yet (although I am getting there)…

Pop over to the free stuff page for much more advice and ideas on how to develop your inner idler.

Matt

PS, I am still working on new content for the static pages. Please bear with me, I am getting there slowly…

THIS IS A SLOW BLOG. It is updated when I have something to say, rather than trying to say something just to update the blog. Learn more about Slow Blogging here. Since this is a Slow Blog, may I suggest you subscribe by RSS by clicking here, or subscribe to receive email updates by clicking here (to learn more about RSS click here for an FAQ).

I have never got Twitter. I have, in fact, been quite mean about it in the past (see my “Twittering Nonsense” post here), then I changed my mind and decided, misquoting Shakespeare (one of my all time favourite people), that “there is nothing (inherently) slow or fast, but thinking (or acting) makes it so”.

So, I decided I would give it a go (you can see my thought process on this post here), and set up a Twitter account (twitter.com/theslowcoach), due to a tiny legal issue (which I won’t go into, it is very embarrassing) I had to change that, so I changed to twitter.com/tortoisemind. But I never really got the hang of it and only really used it to bookmark these blog entries (I mainly got talked into Twitter as a way to promote myself, which is wrong, I know!).

I never really tried to get any followers or follow anyone. I just couldn’t get my head round it (I had a friend – somewhat of a self proclaimed internet marketing “expert” – try and explain what I should be doing on several occasions, but it all seemed far to complicated, and cynical – but more on that in a little while – for me).

Blogging Too Slowly?

But, since deciding to make this a Slow Blog, and taking the pressure off myself to write an entry regularly, even if I couldn’t think of anything to say, I thought I would take another look at Twitter and see if I can get into it.

I have to say, I have relaxed a tad too much and have had to really force myself to write something on this blog! For the first two weeks it didn’t even crossed my mind to blog, it was great, I felt a sense of freedom and relaxation I hadn’t had for a long time. And, that is really the point, slowing down, isn’t really about being slow, it is about following your own rhythm and if you are not in the mood to do something you shouldn’t force yourself.

However, maybe I relaxed a little too much…?

After those first two weeks, October became incredibly hectic; I had four trainings courses to run and a very long list of things I really needed to get done (I don’t as a general rule agree with to do lists, but in this case it was needed), so I didn’t get the chance to even think about writing a blog entry until it was all over (which it is now, thank goodness. I was so frazzled I just couldn’t move for a day or two! Idlers like me are not used to that much intense work all in one go…)

Anyway, back to the Twitter thing. I thought, since taking the pressure off myself to try and write a blog every day, I could start using twitter for more regular updates.

Is it really possible to be a Slow Twitterer? I don’t know, I am still mulling it over, I will continue to try and experiment, but here are my thoughts so far.

Three Things About Twitter That I Don’t Like (because they seem “anti-slow”)

1) It seems rather pointless. I already have plenty of ways to keep in touch with my friends (text, email, letter, and – shock, horror – actually talking to them face to face) and facebook (which I use, but am not the biggest fan of – read Tom Hodgkinson’s excellent article on it here) already has a status update option, why do I need another way to tell people what I am up to? And do they really care?

2) The whole essence of Twitter encourages impatience and lack of attention. If you don’t tweet at least every 33 seconds people will stop following you, heading off to find another font of instant information.

But the big thing that about Twitter is this (and it isn’t really twitters fault, but…)…

3) …like all other social networking sites (but Twitter, with it’s simplicity, seems to encourage this behaviour most), the minute it becomes popular, “methods” spring up to help you promote yourself and suddenly it is flooded with wannabe entrepreneurs, all shouting about their own stuff. My aforementioned friend told me that how I should be using Twitter is to search for people who are interested (or tweeting about) the area of work I am in and then become friends with them. Twitter etiquette, apparently, is then that they follow you back and VOILA you have someone you can plug your wares to.

The thing that makes me wonder about that is, if you are following them just to get them to follow you, and therefore, have little intention of reading their tweets, how interested do you think they will be in what you have to say? Surely it just ends up with lots of people muttering to themselves?

It just seems that twitter lends itself much more to this banal, self-centred shouting. Breaking the golden rule of “slow blogging” which is a willingness to keep quiet whilst all other bloggers are shouting “listen to me, listen to me!” It is about not trying to be the loudest voice out there.

Going Out of Fashion?

However it seems that all this worry about whether I should twitter may be irrelevant. Twitter may have had its day. According to reports and the people rarely check back after the first 2 months(read the Tech Crunch article here and the Harvard Business School blog here, there is more research, but I couldn’t be bothered to search for it).

Membership and usage is dropping by the day and Twitter are desperately adding new features including video tweeting and “lists” (which seem unnecessarily complicated) to try and keep users and attract new ones. A slew of celebrities including (the usually very vocal) Lily Allen and Miley Cyrus have abandoned it, it even slipped down the Sunday Times Style cool list last Sunday (which is usually a death knell)…

Is It Really Worth It?

So it seems to me Twitter is full of celebrities trying to circumvent the gossip columns and tabloid presses to talk to their fans directly (which I think is actually an amiable thing to do) and “entrepreneurs” (I use that word advisedly) muttering to themselves trying to flog their snake oil. The true users (the ones I assume twitter was set up for) seem to have got lost in the middle somewhere (and just seem to follow their favourite “celebrities”).

Basically, it feels horribly, horribly cynical.

Of course, this is a very negative point of view and could possibly be me just trying to justify my total confusion (and disinterest) in it?

So, putting my negative attitude and emotions to one side and assuming Twitter doesn’t go horribly out of fashion in the next few days, how can I attempting to embrace Twitter in a Slow Manner?

Well, Here is My (Very Simple) Slow Twitter Manifesto

1. I tweet when I tweet. Don’t expect regular updates, you won’t get them.

2. I will only follow someone, if I genuinely want to hear what they have to say, not so that they will follow me (so don’t follow me just to get a reciprocal follow – you probably won’t get one -  follow me because you want to hear what I have to say).

3. I won’t use twitter just for brainless self promotion, and will only tweet something I think will be of interest to my follows, including links and alerts about new blog entries.

Let’s see how it works out shall we?

Matt

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Well, I am sorry for not blogging for over 2 weeks, I have been on holiday and on my return had a lot of little bits to sort out.

I spent a lovely week in Crete, nice food, nice wine, just sunbathing and catching up on a pile of books I wanted to read.

Whilst I was away I found myself thinking about how to continue with this blog. When I started blogging seriously a while ago I did a lot of research into what it takes to make a “successful” blog. I found myself being seduced by all the pro-bloggers out there who say you should blog every day and seem to be incredibly prolific, particularly the excellent and prolific Leo Babauta of Zen Habits. So I tried to write a blog entry every day. Even if I didn’t really want to.

I suddenly realised I had been seduced by speed again!

I was blogging every day because I thought I should, not because I was inspired to. Sometimes I would throw up an entry just to get one up there and I was worrying so much about just getting something up on this blog that I wasn’t taking the time to write some of the more indepth posts about certain subjects that I really wanted to. Blogging was making me stressed! I was starting to resent blogging, I started to dread that time of day or week when I had to sit down and write an entry. My mind would go blank, I would start to sweat and eventually I would just write anything to get it out of the way…

I wasn’t planning any entries because I wasn’t enjoying doing it and I was treating them like a chore I had to get out of the way before I could get on with my “proper work”.

You see, the pro-bloggers I had been trying to emulate just blogged (actually saying “just” sounds like a criticism, which it isn’t, it would be better to say primarily blog), however, even though I blog. Quite a lot. I write 3 other blogs than this one:

www.thepracticebuilderblog.com – where I give advice on how to run a therapy or coaching practice

mattcaulfield.blogspot.com – This was my first ever blog and has been going since 2005. Nowadays I use to write my thoughts about NLP (Neuro linguistic Programming) and related subjects.

thetaichiguy.blogspot.com – A brand new blog talking about my practice of the amazing art of Tai Chi.

I am not primarily a blogger. I would consider myself primarily a coach, consultant and trainer/teacher. I spend most of my time working with people helping them slow down. Blogging is a big part of that, but it is not the biggest part, if that makes sense?

So, by trying to emulate the people who primarily blog, I was finding the quality of my blogging was slipping, some days I would be proud of what I had written, other days I would just slap something up, not planning, not proof reading and not particularly caring. I didn’t feel many of my entries really captured my personality and the passion for the subject that I have.

Something had to be done!

And that is when I made the decision to commit myself fully to the slow blogging ideal. I wrote a couple of entries sometime ago about Slow Blogging (see the posts here and here) and then totally failed to actually start slow blogging!

So, I am now…

Slow bloggers eschew the idea of immediacy in blogging for a more measured and considered post. It is about quality not quantity and lives by the axiom “it happens when it happens”.

So, from now on I am no longer going to rush out entries just for the sake of posting. I am going to think, plan, study, draft and (endeavour) to write longer, better written entries with more depth. Hopefully. I will, of course, post shorter blogs, from time to time with news and interesting tidbits I have to say that don’t require a more detailed entry.

In fact, to move away from the association that blogging has with immediacy, I intend to call this a journal from now on, not a blog.

The aim is to write a well-developed entry once a week, with maybe the occasionally serial spread out over days or weeks. To be honest, I don’t know yet, I am still working it all out.

I will be updating this site over the next week or so to reflect this shift of emphasis and will be adding more information about Slow Blogging, including my own Slow Blog Manifesto.

I hope you stick with me whilst I experiment and find my feet.

Now, if you will excuse me, I am off to take the dogs for a walk.

Matt

PS, I will also be applying the idea to twitter. Where I intend to “twitter when I twitter” no sooner, no later. I have never really got my tortoise mind around twitter and hopefully this new philosophy will help. Who knows? It’s all very exciting isn’t it?!

I remember hearing the late great Robert Anton Wilson talking about the term “Hilaritas”, which is derived from a Greek word, meaning to “live joyfully” and was supposedly used to describe the gods. You could tell they were a god because the had “Hilaritas”.

Humour is incredibly important to the Slow mindset. Humour has power. If you can laugh at something you remove it’s control over you. It is why satire is considered so potent and we used comical propaganda during WWII.

I remember once, when I was still working as an NLP therapist, talking to a group of other therapists and we were chatting about some of our work that we had done. All of a sudden, one of the more earnest therapists just lashed out and said to me “I think you are disgusting! I can’t believe you treat your clients in such a way, you show no respect to them, making fun of them all the time”. I was a bit taken aback, but then explained calmly and gently that I took my clients 100% seriously and treated them with the utmost respect, but what I never did was take their “problems” seriously. As, taking a problem seriously often makes it worse, and if you can get your clients to truly laugh that their problems that can often be enough to make them go away (the problem, not the client!).

In the Slow movement I often meet quite a few earnest people, who take slowing down very seriously. They are somewhat evangelical and critical of other people who do not conform to their understanding of the world (and their understanding of how we should slow down). A friend and I often refer to them as “lentil knitters” and poke a bit of light hearted fun at them. This attitude isn’t helping at all and is often counter productive as turns people off the Slow Movement. Besides, the Slow Movement has no leaders or structure, it is a collection of people embracing the idea of slowing down and rejecting the ethos of “faster is best”, in all it’s forms, there is (as far as I can tell) no “right” or “wrong” way to do it!

So, in this post I thought I would explore the more humorous (yet still important) side of Slowing Down.

The Idler

www.idler.co.uk

I have mentioned the Idler here a few times. It has recently re-invented itself in a more serious guise as a journal of radical thought, but before then it was a tongue in cheek look at the life of loafing. In both its guises I highly recommend it!

The New Escapolosgist

newescapologist.wordpress.com

A new periodical in a similar vein to the Idler. Edited by the Glasgow flâneur Robert Wringham, its purpose is to help its readers “flee the humdrum spreadsheet of prescribed reality into an exciting world of one’s own invention.”

The Church of the Latter Day Dude (Dudeism)

www.dudeism.com

Inspired by the antics of Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski, in the Coen brother film “The Big Lebowski”, they espose a laidback lifestyle. In it’s own words “Come join the slowest-growing religion in the world – Dudeism. An ancient philosophy that preaches non-preachiness, practices as little as possible, and above all, uh…lost my train of thought there. Anyway, if you’d like to find peace on earth and goodwill, man, we’ll help you get started. Right after a little nap…”

The Church of the Subgenius

www.subgenius.com

The aim of the subgenius is to attain SLACK, the “sense of freedom, independence, and original thinking that comes when you achieve your personal goals.” Although a parody of the major cults and religions, the idea if slack is an excellent one!

Discordianism

Similar to The Church of the Subgenius. The Discordian movement is either a “religion disguised as a joke, or a joke disguised as a religion”. It has no central body as one of the basic tenants is that “us Discordians must stick apart”, but you can learn more at it’s Wikipedia page here. Discordianism reminds us not to take anything too seriously and to just let go.

If anyone has any other lighthearted Slow organisations out there, please let me know.

Matt

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Oops! My apologies for the SlowCast uploaded last Thursday, it didn’t seem to get past the 2 minute mark! Many thanks to the people who have sent emails and comments letting me know. I have reuploaded the SlowCast, and it should hopefully work OK now.

You can listen to the full podcast here:

http://slowcoach.podbean.com/2009/06/29/slow-cast-episode-8-manners-maketh-the-idler-re-uploaded/

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I apologies, I don’t have time to write a proper entry today, so I just wanted to draw your attention to 2 periodicals that I read regularly and highly recommend:

The Idler

I have been reading the Idler for 2 years now, it was the first inspirations for me to take up the idle or slow life.

The Idler is a yearly publication devoted to promoting its ethos of ‘idle living’ and all that entail, founded in 1993 by Tom Hodgkinson and Gavin Pretor-Pinney. Following in the footsteps of Samuel Johnson’s collection of essays and Jerome K. Jerome’s popular periodical, the concept behind The Idler is intended as a riposte to the idea of the ‘work ethic’.

Idler 42: Smash the System has just been released. The new cloth-bound 350 page annual Idler, a collection of radical essays with contributions from Alain De Botton, Penny Rimbaud, John Mitchinson, Jay Griffiths, Paul Kingsnorth, Oliver James.

For more details and to buy go to www.idler.co.uk

The New Escapologist

I have only recently come across this new publication, it is only on issue 2.

It is produced by the Robert Wringham and its purpose is to help its readers “to flee the humdrum spreadsheet of prescribed reality into an exciting world of one’s own invention.” The second issue (out now) is titled “The War Against Cliché” and offers tips for cultivating your own unique self and shedding received opinion and humbug. A nice practical final page invites readers to send in ideas for businesses that would create a median £356 a week income on just four hours’ work a week (inspired by Tim Ferriss’ excellent book). Go to newescapologist.wordpress.com for more details.

I will be back tomorrow.

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I have to admit, today, I have no idea what to write. I am going to continue the mindfulness mini-course (for want of a better word), next week (I have a bit of a hectic week this week and want to give that subject a bit more time as it is very important to being Slow) and I am working on a new SlowCast (out soon, I promise).

So, I have a list of “blog idea’ that I keep in a document on my Mac, some are quite well developed, some are just a word or a phrase. One just said “Slow Film?”, I have no idea where I was going with that one!

But the one that jumped out was another idea of a random series I was going to start “Idle Accessories”, stuff that help you slow down or that all tortoisem minded people should own. Not a great title I admit, I may change it at a later date.

And number one on that list was the humble dressing gown. It was freezing here yesterday (in the middle of June! Where is the summer?!) and so, to keep warm, I wrapped myself up in my dressing gown whilst doing work. I have a lovely dressing gown, soft, warm, thick and with a hood! A perfect piece of clothing to wander round the house in, whether you are in your pyjama’s or fully clothed. And there is something relaxing, comforting and soothing about pulling on a dressing gown, tying round your waste and collapsing onto the sofa.

Just remember to take it off before you go out.

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I have a confession to make. And with the upcoming British Grand Prix this weekend at Silverstone I thought it was time to come clean…

I like Formula One.

“What?!” You may scream! How can I like Formula One? It is fast, it is cars, it is bad for the environment, etc, etc.

I know, I know, but remember Slow isn’t about doing everything at a snails pace, it is about doing things at the right speed. In fact, I often describe the mindset of Slow as being unflustered and unhurried. And often, as I am sure you can agree with in your own experience, being unflustered and unhurried will get you where you want to be fast than rushing, stressing and getting all wound up.

“More haste, less speed” is a very apt old saying that describes the slow mindset. The faster you try to do something, the more likely you are to make mistakes that make you take longer than it would had you planned it.

So, what has all this got to do with Formula One? Well, ironically, Formula One drivers, especially the current the leader in the Drivers Championship, Jenson Button can demonstrate the slow mindset perfectly.

Experts and pundits describe Buttons attitude and laid back, relaxed and easy going and his driving style as unrushed, calm and smooth. The sort of words I would use to describe the ideal Idler!

So, well done Jenson, you are a perfect example of how a Slow Mindset can make you faster. And best of luck on Sunday at the British Grand Prix!

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PS, this post was written before the news about a spit in F1, but this isn’t a Formula One blog, so I am not going to discuss it.