Mark: Alright Michelle, before we dive in, give me your honest, one-sentence review of the modern pace of life. Michelle: Oh, that's easy. It's like a treadmill that's stuck on high, and the 'off' button is just a sticker. Mark: That is painfully accurate. And it perfectly sets the stage for the book we're talking about today: In Praise of Slowness by Carl Honoré. What's fascinating is that Honoré wasn't some philosopher in an ivory tower. He was a globetrotting journalist, a self-confessed 'speedaholic,' until he had a personal breaking point that sparked this entire investigation. Michelle: A speedaholic who wrote a book about slowness? I love that. It’s like a chocoholic writing a diet book. You know they’ve been in the trenches. Mark: Exactly. He gets it. And his wake-up call is so relatable it’s almost painful. Have you ever felt so rushed, so desperate to save a few seconds, that you've considered doing something completely absurd? Michelle: You mean like pressing the elevator button three times because you’re convinced it makes it come faster? That’s my daily cardio. Mark: Well, Honoré takes it a step further. He’s at an airport in Rome, rushing to catch a flight, feeling that familiar impatience bubbling up. He’s a busy foreign correspondent, juggling deadlines and a young son at home. While he’s waiting in line, he sees an article promoting a new series of books: 'The One-Minute Bedtime Story.' Michelle: Oh no. I see where this is going. Mark: It condenses classic fairy tales into sixty-second sound bites. And his first thought isn't horror. It's relief. He thinks, "This is brilliant! This will solve my bedtime-story problem!" He’s literally about to buy into the idea of speed-reading Cinderella to his two-year-old son. Michelle: I’ve been there. Not with bedtime stories, but with that feeling of, "Yes! A shortcut! I can optimize my humanity!" Mark: But then, a second thought hits him like a lightning bolt. He asks himself, "Have I gone insane?" He realizes his entire life has become an exercise in hurry, in shaving seconds off everything, even the most precious moments with his child. That single, absurd idea was the catalyst for this whole book. It forced him to ask: why are we all in such a rush?

Michelle: Okay, but isn't that just a personal problem? A moment of parental guilt at the airport? I get it, but calling it a global 'sickness' feels a bit dramatic. Is it really a collective issue, or are some of us just bad at time management? Mark: That's the question Honoré tackles head-on. He argues it’s a cultural pandemic. He uses a term coined by a physician, Larry Dossey, called 'time-sickness.' It’s defined as "the belief that time is getting away, that there isn’t enough of it, and that you must pedal faster and faster to keep up." It’s that constant, low-grade panic that you’re always behind. Michelle: The treadmill analogy again. The feeling that if you slow down for even a second, you’ll be flung off the back. Mark: Precisely. And the book argues this isn't just a feeling; it has real, tangible, and sometimes tragic consequences. It’s not just about feeling stressed. It’s about what happens when an entire culture glorifies speed above all else. He tells this one story that has stuck with me for years. Michelle: Okay, let's hear it. Mark: It’s about a young man in Japan during the stock market boom of the late 80s named Kamei Shuji. He was a star broker, the epitome of success. He routinely worked ninety-hour weeks. Michelle: Ninety hours? That’s more than two full-time jobs. Mark: And his company didn't just tolerate it; they celebrated it. They made him a role model. They even had him, a junior employee, coach senior colleagues on his work ethic, adding even more pressure. He was the poster boy for the idea that 'the fast eat the slow.' Michelle: That sounds like a recipe for disaster. Mark: It was. When the Japanese stock bubble burst in 1989, the pressure intensified. He started working even longer hours to try and make up for the losses. Then, in 1990, at the age of twenty-six, Kamei Shuji died of a heart attack. His death became a symbol for a new word in the Japanese lexicon: karoshi. Michelle: What does that mean? Mark: Death by overwork. Michelle: Wow. That's absolutely chilling. To be celebrated for working yourself to death at 26... it's a powerful indictment of that culture. Mark: And it wasn't an isolated incident. The book points out that in the years following, the Japanese government reported record numbers of karoshi victims. It’s the ultimate, tragic endpoint of time-sickness. It’s what happens when a society forgets that humans have limits. It’s not just about inefficiency or stress; it’s about life and death. Michelle: Okay, you've convinced me. It's more than just bad time management. When a culture creates a word for 'death by overwork,' you have a systemic problem. So if that’s the diagnosis, what’s the cure?

Mark: Exactly. And that level of crisis is what sparked a quiet, but powerful, counter-revolution. It's not about stopping completely, which is what I think most people assume. The book makes it very clear: the goal is to find what it calls the 'tempo giusto.' Michelle: Tempo giusto... that's Italian, right? Mark: It is. It means 'the right speed.' The Slow movement isn't anti-speed; it's anti-hurry. It's about having the right to determine your own tempo. As one of the movement's founders, Carlo Petrini, says, "If today I want to go fast, I go fast; if tomorrow I want to go slow, I go slow." It’s about reclaiming control. Michelle: Okay, 'the right speed.' What does that actually look like in practice? Are we talking about communes where everyone weaves their own yogurt? What's a real-world example of a community choosing its own tempo? Mark: I love that image. And no, it’s often much more playful and integrated than that. There’s a group in Austria called the Society for the Deceleration of Time. One of their projects was setting up 'speed traps' for pedestrians in busy town centers. Michelle: Wait, speed traps for people walking? Mark: Yes! They'd time people walking a 50-meter stretch. If you walked it too fast, they'd stop you, playfully ask why you were in such a rush, and then, as a 'punishment,' you had to walk the same distance again... while steering a complicated tortoise marionette along the pavement. Michelle: A tortoise marionette! That is brilliantly absurd. I can just imagine a stressed-out businessman in a suit having to do that. What was the reaction? Mark: People loved it! The book says many people hadn't even considered why they were rushing. And the act of slowing down to guide this little tortoise was surprisingly soothing. Some even came back later in the day to walk the turtle a second time. It’s a perfect micro-example of the philosophy: a gentle, humorous interruption that forces you to question your own pace. Michelle: A tortoise marionette is cute, but can you really apply this to something bigger, like a whole city? It feels like a novelty, not a systemic solution. Mark: That’s the perfect question, because the movement has scaled up. It started with Slow Food in Italy, as a protest against a McDonald's opening near the Spanish Steps in Rome. That idea—of protecting local traditions and pleasure from the onslaught of speed and homogenization—morphed into a movement called Citta Slow, or Slow Cities. Michelle: Slow Cities. What does that entail? Banning cars and making everyone ride bicycles with wicker baskets? Mark: Not quite, though it is more pedestrian-friendly. The book uses the town of Bra, Italy—the headquarters of Slow Food—as the prime example. In 1999, the town pledged to become a Citta Slow. They implemented a charter of 55 pledges. They cut noise and traffic, increased green spaces, and banned lurid neon signs. They subsidized renovations that used local, traditional materials. The hospital and school canteens started serving locally sourced, traditional dishes. Michelle: That sounds idyllic. But did it hurt their economy? That's always the argument against this kind of thing—that it's inefficient and bad for business. Mark: Here’s the counter-intuitive part. It actually revitalized their economy. The focus on local delicacies, artisanal products, and a more pleasant, human-scaled environment turned Bra into a tourist destination. Small businesses that were struggling found a new market. It created a positive feedback loop where slowing down and focusing on quality actually led to economic prosperity. It proved that you don't have to sacrifice your soul for your bottom line.

Michelle: That’s fascinating. So it's not about being slow, it's about being intentional. The 'One-Minute Bedtime Story' and the 90-hour work week are the same problem—losing control of your own rhythm. And the 'Slow' movement is just about taking that control back, whether it's with a tortoise puppet or redesigning a town square. Mark: You've nailed it. It’s about shifting the default setting. Our default is 'faster is better.' The Slow philosophy asks, "Is it? Or is the right speed better?" The book is full of these examples—slow medicine that listens, slow parenting that allows for unstructured play, even slow exercise that builds more muscle. It’s a paradigm shift. Michelle: It feels like the ultimate rebellion in the modern age isn't loud protest, but quiet, deliberate slowness. Mark: Exactly. And Honoré's point is that you don't have to move to Italy to do it. You can start small. He talks about his own transformation at the end of the book, how he learned to read bedtime stories to his son without skipping pages, using different voices, and savoring the moment. The battle isn't out there; it's inside our own heads, against our own 'inner roadrunner.' The challenge for all of us is to find one thing we rush through—a meal, a conversation, a walk—and consciously do it slowly. Michelle: It makes you wonder, what's the one 'One-Minute Bedtime Story' in your own life that you're trying to speed through? For me, it's probably my morning coffee. I just gulp it down while checking emails. Mark: Mine is definitely walking the dog. I'm always trying to get it over with. But what if that walk was the point, not just a task to be completed? That's the question the book leaves you with. Michelle: It’s a powerful one. It’s not about adding more to your to-do list, but changing how you approach what's already there. Mark: We'd love to hear from our listeners on this. Think about that question: what's the one thing you rush that you could try to do slowly this week? Let us know your own "slow" experiments. It’s a conversation worth having, at a pace that does it justice. Mark: This is Aibrary, signing off.