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The fast pace of life against the movement Slow life: we understand what the “culture of slowing down” is, when it appeared, how it is connected with the Buddhist idea of mindfulness and the epicurean call Carpe diem.
We are used to the fact that coffee is prepared quickly, a taxi arrives in a matter of minutes, and a flight to another continent is only part of the list for a whole day. We, like children watching the worldwide acceleration, are under the influence of incredible information flows. The world in which we find ourselves is not the same as it was for the previous millennia. Geographic and time boundaries are being erased, values are changing, but peace and happiness does not increase. And it's getting harder and harder to deal with the mediocrity of our era. Why are the seemingly pleasing virtues of a fast life rejection and disagree with human nature? Let's talk about quality, meaningfulness and pleasure, which reveal the main meaning of the philosophy of "slow" life.
Food is to blame
It all began in Italy in the late 80s, when the first McDonald's restaurant in the country was about to open in the center of Rome, next to Plaza de España. Then, a passionate opponent of fast food, a journalist and politician, Carlo Petrini, as a sign of disapproval, came up with a truly Italian solution: to organize a traditional meal in the same square, where the main dish will be pasta. On the opening day, Petrini and his followers bravely waved bowls of spaghetti as a symbol of protest. The demonstration was successful, but McDonald's appeared on the square. True, their letter "M" was made several times smaller than planned - negotiations with the authorities helped.
In the same year, Italy experienced a methanol scandal. After poisoning with cheap, low-quality wine from the province of Asti, about 30 people died and another 90 became disabled, losing mainly their eyesight. Ciravegna di Narzole added methanol to the drink to increase the alcohol content, for which its owners, Giovanni and Daniel Ciravegna, were sentenced to prison in 1992. The scandal provoked a crisis: the export of Italian wine abroad decreased by one third a year.
The idea of founding the International Slow Food Movement was led by Carlo Petrini to the need to create an organization that would defend the gastronomic traditions of all countries of the world. He believed that the culture and history of any nation originates from local food, and therefore culinary traditions and recipes must be protected and preserved.
At the first official meeting in 1989, delegates from 15 countries signed the Movement's Manifesto. One of the key principles was "the quality of products and the belief in the right to pleasure."
According to Carlo Petrini, there is now enough food produced to feed all the inhabitants of the Earth, but these supplies are completely unevenly distributed. It turns out that two billion people are satiated with food, and another billion are starving. And you also need to do something about this.
The problem of satiety is reflected not only in the matter of food. Tatiana Chernigovskaya, a Russian scientist in the field of neuroscience and psycholinguistics, in her lectures often talks about the peculiarities of our brain.
Time of great life
The creators of Slow Food are confident: it is enough to know what and how a person eats, and it will immediately become clear in what rhythm he lives. And, if food reflects our way of life, then it, in turn, is determined by the work of our consciousness.
Based on the idea of slow, quality eating, the Slow Life movement was heavily influenced by Geir Berthelsen, founder of the World Slowness Institute, and Carl Honoré, a Canadian journalist and author of books on slowing the pace of life.
In 2004, Carl Honore published In Praise of Slowness, in which he wrote:
Summarizing the philosophy of slow life, the Norwegian philosopher and professor Gattorm Flistad once stated:
Build stop signs
It is noteworthy that Buddhism is one of the main religious and philosophical teachings, which is professed by the majority of the Japanese. It is in Buddhist practice that it is curious to draw attention to the idea of mindfulness, which is seen as an integral part of spiritual development. Buddhists believe that being mindful of ourselves frees us from our past patterns of behavior, while awareness of reality frees us from delusions that lead to suffering and dissatisfaction.
The Buddhist quality of mindfulness in English sounds like "mindfulness", but in Sanskrit it has three different words with different shades of meaning.
The first, "smriti" (in Russian transcription), is usually used to denote the state when we are present in our actual experience, as opposed to distraction or distraction. Samprajna means clear knowledge and is used to mean the idea that you clearly see your goals and the relationship between what you are doing and your goal. And third, "apramada" is translated as "vigilance" - attentive protection of oneself from unskilful actions of body, speech and mind. Hence the opposite word "pramada" - intoxication, carelessness and negligence. It is believed that the last words of the Buddha were "Appamadena sampadetha", which is often translated as "Keep making efforts with vigilance."
John Kabat-Zinn, MD, Molecular Biology, Founder and Director of the Stress Management Clinic of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, is a proponent of the Buddhist concept of mindfulness. The professor believes that mindfulness can open up new dimensions of well-being and integrity, wisdom, compassion and kindness to everyone:
But can you find an effective method to help you harness the power of mindfulness? David Steindl-Rast, a Catholic monk known for his active involvement in the work on the interaction between spirituality and science, gave a 2013 TED Talks lecture “Do You Want to Be Happy? Want to be happy? Be grateful. He gives this advice:
To the original
Ancient sages knew the value of time and condemned senseless vanity. When Rome defeated Greece by war, the reciprocal country in turn defeated Rome with its culture, and the powerful influence of the Hellenistic civilization on the Romans began. Ethics Epicureans taught to live in accordance with the principle of carpe diem (enjoy the moment of fast-flowing life), which was reflected in the works of ancient Roman poets, writers and philosophers.
Back in the 19th century, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche came to the conviction that man had destructively withdrawn from nature, that a return to the natural, spontaneous, pre-cultural was the only way to save man.
And if a person still needs to be saved, then it is better to start with false values. Christopher Swader, Senior Research Fellow at the HSE Laboratory for Comparative Social Research, has studied the problem of loneliness. Based on the data of the World Values Survey, he studied the problem on the example of Moscow and came to the conclusion that modern citizens may well sacrifice communication for work or other, more important, in their opinion, goals.
We are used to the fact that coffee is prepared quickly, a taxi arrives in a matter of minutes, and a flight to another continent is only part of the list for a whole day. We, like children watching the worldwide acceleration, are under the influence of incredible information flows. The world in which we find ourselves is not the same as it was for the previous millennia. Geographic and time boundaries are being erased, values are changing, but peace and happiness does not increase. And it's getting harder and harder to deal with the mediocrity of our era. Why are the seemingly pleasing virtues of a fast life rejection and disagree with human nature? Let's talk about quality, meaningfulness and pleasure, which reveal the main meaning of the philosophy of "slow" life.
Food is to blame
It all began in Italy in the late 80s, when the first McDonald's restaurant in the country was about to open in the center of Rome, next to Plaza de España. Then, a passionate opponent of fast food, a journalist and politician, Carlo Petrini, as a sign of disapproval, came up with a truly Italian solution: to organize a traditional meal in the same square, where the main dish will be pasta. On the opening day, Petrini and his followers bravely waved bowls of spaghetti as a symbol of protest. The demonstration was successful, but McDonald's appeared on the square. True, their letter "M" was made several times smaller than planned - negotiations with the authorities helped.
In the same year, Italy experienced a methanol scandal. After poisoning with cheap, low-quality wine from the province of Asti, about 30 people died and another 90 became disabled, losing mainly their eyesight. Ciravegna di Narzole added methanol to the drink to increase the alcohol content, for which its owners, Giovanni and Daniel Ciravegna, were sentenced to prison in 1992. The scandal provoked a crisis: the export of Italian wine abroad decreased by one third a year.
The idea of founding the International Slow Food Movement was led by Carlo Petrini to the need to create an organization that would defend the gastronomic traditions of all countries of the world. He believed that the culture and history of any nation originates from local food, and therefore culinary traditions and recipes must be protected and preserved.
At the first official meeting in 1989, delegates from 15 countries signed the Movement's Manifesto. One of the key principles was "the quality of products and the belief in the right to pleasure."
In the documentary A Slow Food Story, Carlo Petrini admits that what he dislikes most about fast food is monotony:
The playful snail image, chosen as the patron and symbol of the Slow Food Movement, connects the idea of healthy eating that brings sensual pleasure. But this pleasure is possible only with slow enjoyment of food, its taste and unhurried unity at the table.
According to Carlo Petrini, there is now enough food produced to feed all the inhabitants of the Earth, but these supplies are completely unevenly distributed. It turns out that two billion people are satiated with food, and another billion are starving. And you also need to do something about this.
The problem of satiety is reflected not only in the matter of food. Tatiana Chernigovskaya, a Russian scientist in the field of neuroscience and psycholinguistics, in her lectures often talks about the peculiarities of our brain.
And then what to do?
Time of great life
The creators of Slow Food are confident: it is enough to know what and how a person eats, and it will immediately become clear in what rhythm he lives. And, if food reflects our way of life, then it, in turn, is determined by the work of our consciousness.
Based on the idea of slow, quality eating, the Slow Life movement was heavily influenced by Geir Berthelsen, founder of the World Slowness Institute, and Carl Honoré, a Canadian journalist and author of books on slowing the pace of life.
In 2004, Carl Honore published In Praise of Slowness, in which he wrote:
The American edition of The Washington Post even drew special attention in Honore's book to ways of freeing from what the French poet Charles Baudelaire called "the terrible burden of time" and "overcoming the mediocrity of his era." Nowadays, these methods are simple: reduce the time you watch TV, turn off your phone and computer whenever you can, learn to choose what is important and say "no" so as not to overwhelm your own schedule at work and personal meetings. But is everyone ready for such sacrifices? Carl Honore warns:
As a result, we are more attentive to our lives, which are filled with calmness and a sense of the fullness of the present moment.
Summarizing the philosophy of slow life, the Norwegian philosopher and professor Gattorm Flistad once stated:
Here it remains to figure out what is meant by the most important concept - "slowness". Geir Bertelsen, with an MSc in Industrial Organizational Psychology, has worked on the Time category over the years, considering it as a concept and studying the effects of time on the brain. This led him to found the World Slowness Institute in 1999, which defines "slowness" as a forgotten dimension of time.
The World Slow Life Institute is not the only organization supporting the Slow Life movement. Others include the American Long Now Foundation, the European Society for the Deceleration of Time, the International Institute of Not Doing Much, and the Japanese slowness ”(Sloth Club), which, by the way, recommends“ becoming ”a sloth, imitate some of the habits of this animal in order to find a way to live in harmony with the Earth. All of them do not control the movement itself, since it is free, but they fight the worldwide acceleration by joint efforts.
Build stop signs
It is noteworthy that Buddhism is one of the main religious and philosophical teachings, which is professed by the majority of the Japanese. It is in Buddhist practice that it is curious to draw attention to the idea of mindfulness, which is seen as an integral part of spiritual development. Buddhists believe that being mindful of ourselves frees us from our past patterns of behavior, while awareness of reality frees us from delusions that lead to suffering and dissatisfaction.
The Buddhist quality of mindfulness in English sounds like "mindfulness", but in Sanskrit it has three different words with different shades of meaning.
The first, "smriti" (in Russian transcription), is usually used to denote the state when we are present in our actual experience, as opposed to distraction or distraction. Samprajna means clear knowledge and is used to mean the idea that you clearly see your goals and the relationship between what you are doing and your goal. And third, "apramada" is translated as "vigilance" - attentive protection of oneself from unskilful actions of body, speech and mind. Hence the opposite word "pramada" - intoxication, carelessness and negligence. It is believed that the last words of the Buddha were "Appamadena sampadetha", which is often translated as "Keep making efforts with vigilance."
John Kabat-Zinn, MD, Molecular Biology, Founder and Director of the Stress Management Clinic of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, is a proponent of the Buddhist concept of mindfulness. The professor believes that mindfulness can open up new dimensions of well-being and integrity, wisdom, compassion and kindness to everyone:
When we practice mindfulness in our daily lives, we are less affected by destructive emotions, and it helps us maintain a balance that gives us greater satisfaction in work, relationships with loved ones, and life in general.
But can you find an effective method to help you harness the power of mindfulness? David Steindl-Rast, a Catholic monk known for his active involvement in the work on the interaction between spirituality and science, gave a 2013 TED Talks lecture “Do You Want to Be Happy? Want to be happy? Be grateful. He gives this advice:
To the original
Ancient sages knew the value of time and condemned senseless vanity. When Rome defeated Greece by war, the reciprocal country in turn defeated Rome with its culture, and the powerful influence of the Hellenistic civilization on the Romans began. Ethics Epicureans taught to live in accordance with the principle of carpe diem (enjoy the moment of fast-flowing life), which was reflected in the works of ancient Roman poets, writers and philosophers.
In "Moral Letters to Lucilius" Seneca wrote: "Everything is not ours, but someone else's, only time is our property." And if the time, the very one in which we are now, is our property, then it is in our power to dispose of it.
Back in the 19th century, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche came to the conviction that man had destructively withdrawn from nature, that a return to the natural, spontaneous, pre-cultural was the only way to save man.
And if a person still needs to be saved, then it is better to start with false values. Christopher Swader, Senior Research Fellow at the HSE Laboratory for Comparative Social Research, has studied the problem of loneliness. Based on the data of the World Values Survey, he studied the problem on the example of Moscow and came to the conclusion that modern citizens may well sacrifice communication for work or other, more important, in their opinion, goals.
And although people do their best to escape from loneliness, including music or TV at home, just not to be alone, Dmitry Leontyev, head of the laboratory of positive psychology at the Higher School of Economics, adds:
The well-known expression of sweet idleness and delightful doing nothing - dolce far niente is first encountered in the letters of the ancient Roman author Pliny the Younger, dated between 97 and 109 years. During all this time, cheerful and emotional Italians have done quite well in the art of enjoying their free time and staying in touch with nature. Since 2007, on February 26, Italians have been celebrating the International Day of Slowness with the whole world, the idea of which, by the way, also belongs to them. I hope it won't take us even a thousand years for a person to start enjoying communicating with loved ones, to have a full rest, to live with pleasure, to cook and eat tasty and proper food and take care of nature.
