Tortoise Knows Best

Are You Really Slow or Are You a Fastoholic?

Written by Matt Caulfield on December 2, 2010

Have you ever known anyone that has stopped smoking, for example, and suddenly become the most rabid and outspoken antismoker?

When we stop doing something we often slingshot in the opposite direction, we go from one extreme from the other. This is rarely anything to do with the possible addictive nature of the behaviour that has changed (smoking and drinking are the most common examples), but to do with how the person identifies with that behaviour. Often the people who become rabidly anti-something (that they used to do) are the ones that still identify themselves with the behaviour they are now no longer allowing themselves (often for very good reasons) to do. A rabid ex-smoker, for example, will often still consider themselves a smoker, just one who doesn’t smoke. No wonder they are frustrated! They become judgemental and outspoken because, well, why should you enjoy it when they can’t any more?

Fastoholics are people have changed their lifestyle, sold the car (or got a Prius), embraced whole-food, the whole nine yards, but BOY do they want you to know about it! They become po-faced, pious and judgemental. Why? Because they still crave the old fast life, they are only slowing down because they think they should and going about it completely the wrong way. They are still “hare-brained”, they still identity with the old fast life and secretly miss it. They may have changed their external world, but haven’t made the effort to change the way they think about themselves or identify with their behaviour.

Slowing down really does come from the inside out, before you even think about changing your lifestyle, you need to change your relationship with that lifestyle; how you think and feel about. In essence, you need to change your identity. You must consider yourself “tortoise-minded”, not just a “hare-brained” person who has happened to slow down.

Take minimalism for example (a very hot topic right now). Extreme minimalism often seems to be a knee jerk reaction to clutter, like a junkie going cold turkey. It almost becomes a competition about who can own the least. It is much more useful (and healthy) to change your relationship with stuff before you just chuck it all in the bin. The cold turkey approach rarely works and you will just end up regretting your decisions (and very quickly start to horde things again).

Unfortunately most people I meet who claim to be slow are really just Fastoholics. People who are trying to give the impression (for whatever reason) that they have slowed down, but their mind is still racing. Fastoholics are reactive, they just change their external world in response to their unhappiness with their relationship to it.

Tortoise minded people are proactive and take the time to explore, understand and change their relationship with their external world. When you do this, you will find your behaviour and lifestyle will just start to change naturally, without needing to force it.

Matt

Slow Down from the Inside Out

Written by Matt Caulfield on March 24, 2010

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…