1KHO 948: Slow Is a Superpower in Childhood | Carl Honore, In Praise in Slowness

Ginny Yurich (0:00)

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Ginny Yurich (1:27)

Welcome to The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast. My name is Ginny Yurich. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside. And I have the opportunity to talk not once, but twice to Carl Honoré. He is helping people all over the world to slow down just a little bit. Carl, welcome back.

Carl Honoré (1:42)

Thank you so much. It's a treat to be back with you.

Ginny Yurich (1:44)

I loved our conversation last time. We talked about this book. It's called Under Pressure that you've written. And we talked a lot about how sometimes kids are being, not even super purposefully, but they're ending up as almost like trophies, trophies for the family, even maybe trophies for the school system, like how many kids graduate, how many kids go on to Ivy League school, that type of thing. And it was a fantastic conversation. And so I'm so thrilled to get a chance to talk with you again.

I don't know if you would say this is your flagship book. You're such a great writer, but this book is so good. It's called In Praise of Slowness, Challenging the Cult of Speed. We're going to be talking about, and I just love this, like these feathers dropping on the cover. And then you have a book for kids. And it's, in some ways, I would say like one of those kind of coffee table books, you leave it out. And I was telling you before we started that our 16-year-old daughter liked it as much as our 10-year-old daughter. And it's called Slow Adventures, Enjoy Every Moment, 40 Real Life Journeys by Boat, Bike, Foot and Train. And it's this kind of bigger hard cover that you can flip open and just find something new on every page. I love it. So let's kick it off by talking about the turning point for you, which was being...

I don't know if it was in the airport. You were somewhere and you see this book for sale. And you're like, it's one-minute bedtime stories.

Carl Honoré (3:12)

Great!

Yeah, I can laugh about it now. But when I heard about the one-minute bedtime story, I first thought was, hallelujah, get me that book now from Amazon, Drone Delivery, right? Because at the time I was just finding bedtime stories so slow. It's a terrible confession to make as a father, but I found them so slow that I couldn't stand it. It was like a punishment beating. And so I was constantly looking for ways to speed them up. My version of Snow White was so fast, it had only three dwarves. My son would say, where's Grumpy? So when I saw this book saying, have a bedtime story in one minute, I thought, yes, bring it on.

But then I had a second reaction, which was very different. It was a real light bulb over the head moment. I suddenly thought, well, what is happening here? What have I become? I am racing through my life. Instead of living it, I am taking what should be the most relaxed, the most tender, the most joyous, the most slow moment of the day, which is when a father sits down to read a story to his little boy. I'm trying to turn it into a race against the clock to dash to the finish line, and I thought that was for me was hitting rock bottom. I took a step back at that point and thought, whoa, what does this all mean? How can I reconnect with my inner tortoise? Because I'm not living here, I'm just surviving.