Slow Coach
Humankind has achieved a great deal in our short time on Earth, the pinnacle of which some might consider our ability to leaveit, soaring through the sky, sipping drinks on passenger jets, even travelling by rocket to a distant, heavenly body which undoubtedly confounded and awed our ancestors as they huddled around meagre fires in caves. Not all our achievements should be celebrated; the excesses of modern living a drain not just on the planet’s finite resources, but our own psyches. We consume voraciously, perhaps to fill some void many of us don’t even realise we have, perhaps just because we’re easily led. We ignore one another to doom-scroll on our phones whilst the world burns and the seas fill with plastic, then we throw those expensive phones away and get new, even more expensive ones with slightly better cameras (for slightly better selfies). Arguably, we’re slipping further and further from the state of equilibrium nature intended for us, but a growing trend is attempting to push us back from the brink... slowly.
“Whilst fast food may be convenient and fun, the toll its ubiquity takes on the environment (not to mention our bodies) is the antithesis of a slow approach to life.”
“Slow living” is an expansion of the well-known, but frequently ignored adage; “Stop and smell the roses”. The idea is to take time to appreciate the present, lower stress, and prioritize well-being. It encourages us to be intentional with our time, counteracting the 24/7 bustle and overload we’ve somehow convinced ourselves is normal or even aspirational. It encourages us to ground ourselves through meaningful moments, whether that’s reading a book under a tree, feeding the ducks or appreciating a sunset (without immediately posting about it onInstagram)Of course having time to smell the roses - metaphorically or otherwise - might smack of privilege. Life isn’t cheap and most of us are busy by necessity, but it’s imperative we find time and space to nourish the soul.
With spring truly springing, there’s perhaps no better occasion to reconnect with nature and bathe in the true glory of just being. And if we can bewith others – friends, family, community – not just as pixels on a screen, even better. The whole slow movement is rooted in the “slow food” initiative of the 1980s, a counter-culture catalysed by the 1986 protest of Carlo Petrini against the opening of a McDonald’sbranch in Rome’s historic Piazza di Spagna. The proliferation of the gaudy golden arches across the globe is seen by many as a low water mark in the ever-present standoff between quantity and quality. Where Petrini and his slow food proponents espouse local produce, sustainable choices and traditional home cooking, McDonald’s promotes capitalist clowns bulldozing depressed cows to make single-use, plastic Happy Meal toys out of genetically modified chlorinated McChickens, so in many ways quite similar but also different. Whilst fast food may be convenient and fun, the toll its ubiquity takes on the environment (not to mention our bodies) is the antithesis of a slow approach to life. Though local produce may be more expensive and home cooking may take longer than an Uber Eatsdelivery from KFC, the slow living movement would argue a broader cost-benefit analysis would rule markedly in favour of the former. Furthermore, farmers markets and local sellers mean quality food need not cost the world, whilst the things you put in your body need not have been entombed in plastic and flown halfway around it, especially if you plump for in-season options. Batch cooking is another great way to keep costs down.
Search online to have your appetite whetted with a vast buffet of delicious, affordable, seasonal recipes. Another key battleground for the slow movement is “fast fashion” - low-quality, trend-driven clothing that’s produced quickly and cheaply (and quite possibly by someone young enough to still light up at a Happy Meal). With unchecked consumerism run amok, the level of waste in the world of fashion is staggering, while the ethics at play would make Boris Johnson blush. Whilst more than 90% of fast fashion textile workers are underpaid, the industry is the second largest global consumer of water (not to mention a mind-boggling quantity of oil), millions of tons of polyester clothing akin to single-use plastics, haunting the environment for hundreds of years, with just 1% of materials recycled; the rest condemned. The equivalent of a bin lorry’s worth of textiles is burned or landfilled every secondso we don’t have to worry about keeping our whites white, whilst out on the sangrias – just bin it and get another.
Conversely, slow fashion promotes quality, timeless garments not slaves to trends, not unravelling at the poorly-machined seams. It encourages more sustainable materials, reuse and refitting. Whilst quality garments are invariably more expensive new, a little more intentionality and awareness of the true cost of fast fashion would likely see more of us hitting the charity and vintage shops, swapping with our friends, upcycling and accessorizing our time-worn staples, regardless of the changing seasons or the latest whims. Whether through food, fashion or lifestyle, the ethos behind the slow movement is one of intentionality and balance, of finding meaning in the noise, the understanding that taking time to be mindful is beneficial not just for ourselves, but our communities and the planet at large. For those of us only just becoming aware of the crazy rat-race we’ve been plunged into, the idea of a system shift can be overwhelming, yet small, incremental changes are entirely valid. Ultimately, we can’t be “perfect” all the time, whatever perfect is. Not everypurchase will be “ethically sourced”, every strawberry organic, every commute to work a wide-eyed wend through golden fields of corn, but you may find slowing down a little more often may just speed up your journey to fulfilment.
#Slowliving for inspiration.
“Whether through food, fashion or lifestyle, the ethos behind the slow movement is one of intentionality and balance, of finding meaning in the noise”