What I'd like to start off with is an observation, which is that if I've learned anything over the last year, it's that the supreme irony of publishing a book about slowness is that you have to go around promoting it really fast. I seem to spend most of my time these days zipping from city to city, studio to studio, interview to interview, serving up the book in really tiny bite-size chunks. Because everyone these days wants to know how to slow down, but they want to know how to slow down really quickly. So ... so I did a spot on CNN the other day where I actually spent more time in makeup than I did talking on air. And I think that -- that's not really surprising though, is it? Because that's kind of the world that we live in now, a world stuck in fast-forward.
在此次演講之前,我想要從一個觀察開始說起, 如果我去年對什麼事有印象的話, 那就是,極度諷刺地 是我出版了一本關於慢速的書 但卻必須快速地到處宣傳它。 最近我似乎花掉大部份的時間, 快速地跑遍各個城市,各個錄音間, 以及各個採訪。 在真的很短暫的時間內介紹我的書。 因爲現在每個人 都想要瞭解如何慢下來, 但他們想要快速地瞭解如何慢下來。 幾天前我在CNN做了一個廣告 事實上比起在上廣告的時間,我花了更多的時間在化妝上。 然後我想-這也不是太令人驚訝的事,不是嗎? 因為在現今我們所生活的世界中, 這個陷入快速前進狀態的世界。
A world obsessed with speed, with doing everything faster, with cramming more and more into less and less time. Every moment of the day feels like a race against the clock. To borrow a phrase from Carrie Fisher, which is in my bio there; I'll just toss it out again -- "These days even instant gratification takes too long." (Laughter) And if you think about how we to try to make things better, what do we do? No, we speed them up, don't we? So we used to dial; now we speed dial. We used to read; now we speed read. We used to walk; now we speed walk. And of course, we used to date and now we speed date. And even things that are by their very nature slow -- we try and speed them up too. So I was in New York recently, and I walked past a gym that had an advertisement in the window for a new course, a new evening course. And it was for, you guessed it, speed yoga. So this -- the perfect solution for time-starved professionals who want to, you know, salute the sun, but only want to give over about 20 minutes to it. I mean, these are sort of the extreme examples, and they're amusing and good to laugh at.
這個對速度過於迷戀的世界, 在越來越少的時間裡,想更快地做每件事, 塞入更多的東西。 每天的生活就像是 和時間在賽跑。 借一句Carrie Fisher的話, 這在我的自傳中也有,我只是再引用一次- "現在甚至連瞬間的滿足都要花很久的時間。" 而且 想想如何讓事情做的更好,我們會怎麼做? 我們會加快速度的去做,不是嗎?如同我們過去播電話號碼;現在我們用快速撥號。 過去我們閱讀;現在我們速讀。過去我們慢走;現在我們競走。 我們過去約會,現在我們有快速約會。 即使那些原本就該慢慢做的事情- 我們也會試著將它加快速度。所以- 我最近在紐約時,經過了一個健身房 窗戶上貼了一個新的夜間課程的廣告。 你猜是什麼?-- 快速瑜伽。 這是給時間緊迫的專業人士們最佳的解決辦法。 給那些想要練習拜日式, 但只想要花20分鐘的人來學。 我的意思是,這些都是極端的例子, 真的很有趣,而且是很好笑。
But there's a very serious point, and I think that in the headlong dash of daily life, we often lose sight of the damage that this roadrunner form of living does to us. We're so marinated in the culture of speed that we almost fail to notice the toll it takes on every aspect of our lives -- on our health, our diet, our work, our relationships, the environment and our community. And sometimes it takes a wake-up call, doesn't it, to alert us to the fact that we're hurrying through our lives, instead of actually living them; that we're living the fast life, instead of the good life. And I think for many people, that wake-up call takes the form of an illness. You know, a burnout, or eventually the body says, "I can't take it anymore," and throws in the towel. Or maybe a relationship goes up in smoke because we haven't had the time, or the patience, or the tranquility, to be with the other person, to listen to them.
但這裡有一個非常嚴肅的重點, 我認為在每天匆忙的快速奔走中, 我們往往會沒察覺到 這種競走式的生活方式對我們的傷害在哪。 我們是如此地沈浸在崇拜速度的文化中 使我們常常忽略了 我們生命各方面所要付出的代價。 在我們的健康,飲食,工作, 關係上,環境上以及社會上所造成的影響。 而且有時候我們需要一個- -一個警示,不是嗎?用來- 提醒我們正在匆忙地渡過我們的生命。 而不是真正地在生活; 我們過得快,而不是過得好。 而我認為對許多人來說,那個警示 需要用疾病的形式來呈現。 疾病突然爆發,最後身體說 "我再也受不了了",投降。 或是因為我們沒有足夠的時間,耐心, 去靜靜地陪伴另一半, 去聽他們說話, 因而讓一段關係化為泡影。
And my wake-up call came when I started reading bedtime stories to my son, and I found that at the end of day, I would go into his room and I just couldn't slow down -- you know, I'd be speed reading "The Cat In The Hat." I'd be -- you know, I'd be skipping lines here, paragraphs there, sometimes a whole page, and of course, my little boy knew the book inside out, so we would quarrel. And what should have been the most relaxing, the most intimate, the most tender moment of the day, when a dad sits down to read to his son, became instead this kind of gladiatorial battle of wills, a clash between my speed and his slowness. And this went on for some time, until I caught myself scanning a newspaper article with timesaving tips for fast people. And one of them made reference to a series of books called "The One-Minute Bedtime Story." And I wince saying those words now, but my first reaction at the time was very different. My first reflex was to say, "Hallelujah -- what a great idea! This is exactly what I'm looking for to speed up bedtime even more." But thankfully, a light bulb went on over my head, and my next reaction was very different, and I took a step back, and I thought, "Whoa -- you know, has it really come to this? Am I really in such a hurry that I'm prepared to fob off my son with a sound byte at the end of the day?" And I put away the newspaper -- and I was getting on a plane -- and I sat there, and I did something I hadn't done for a long time -- which is I did nothing. I just thought, and I thought long and hard. And by the time I got off that plane, I'd decided I wanted to do something about it. I wanted to investigate this whole roadrunner culture, and what it was doing to me and to everyone else.
而我的警示出現在 我讀床邊故事給我兒子聽的時候。 我發現在他睡前, 我會走進他房間,但我就是無法慢下來, 我會很快念過"戴帽子的貓"的故事。 我會跳著念, 有時候是跳過一整頁。 當然,我的小兒子非常瞭解這本書,所以我們開始爭吵。 這應該是一天中最舒服,最親近, 最溫柔的時刻。 當一個父親要坐下來念一些故事給兒子聽時, 反而卻變成了這種意志的鬥爭; 一個他的速度和我的- 或是我的快和他的慢之間的衝突。 而這種情況持續了一段時間, 直到我在報紙上讀到一篇 給追求快速的人們提供省時的小技巧的文章。 其中一個引用了一系列稱為 "一分鐘床邊故事"的書作為參考。 我現在真的不想這樣說, 但那時我第一個反應跟現在是非常不同的。 我第一個反應是說, "我的老天-多棒的一個點子!" 這就是我在尋找如何更快地說完床邊故事的方法。 但幸好, 一個燈泡在我腦中亮了起來,我的第二個反應是非常不同的, 我往後退了一步想, "哇-真的要這樣子嗎? 我真的有這麼急到要 用一分鐘故事來敷衍我兒子?" 然後-我將報紙放到一旁- 當時我正要上飛機-我坐在那, 做了一件我很久沒有做的事:那就是不做任何事。 我在想,深刻地想了很久。 當我要下飛機時,我決定要做一些改變。 我想要檢視這整個競走式的社會文化, 這樣的文化對我以及其他人有什麼影響。
And I had two questions in my head. The first was, how did we get so fast? And the second is, is it possible, or even desirable, to slow down? Now, if you think about how our world got so accelerated, the usual suspects rear their heads. You think of, you know, urbanization, consumerism, the workplace, technology. But I think if you cut through those forces, you get to what might be the deeper driver, the nub of the question, which is how we think about time itself. In other cultures, time is cyclical. It's seen as moving in great, unhurried circles. It's always renewing and refreshing itself. Whereas in the West, time is linear. It's a finite resource; it's always draining away. You either use it, or lose it. "Time is money," as Benjamin Franklin said. And I think what that does to us psychologically is it creates an equation. Time is scarce, so what do we do? Well -- well, we speed up, don't we? We try and do more and more with less and less time. We turn every moment of every day into a race to the finish line -- a finish line, incidentally, that we never reach, but a finish line nonetheless. And I guess that the question is, is it possible to break free from that mindset? And thankfully, the answer is yes, because what I discovered, when I began looking around, that there is a global backlash against this culture that tells us that faster is always better, and that busier is best.
當時我腦中想到兩個問題。 第一,我們怎麼變得如此快速的? 第二,要慢下來是 可能的或是大家期望的嗎? 現在,如果你思考 世界是如何變得如此快速?通常有以下幾點可能的說法, 我們會想到城市化, 消費主義,工作環境,科技。 但我認為如果先撇開這些不談, 你可能會發現更深層的動力 問題的核心, 那就是我們如何看待“時間”這個觀念。 在其他的文化中,時間是循環的。 像是在一個巨大的循環中 不疾不徐地移動。 它會不斷地自我更新,自我呈現新的面貌。 但在西方,時間是線性的。 是個有限的資源, 總是在消失中。 你要嘛使用它,否則就會失去它。 班傑明 富蘭克林說的好,時間就是金錢。 我認為它對我們心理上的影響是- 它創造了一個方程式。 時間是稀少的,我們該怎麼做? 於是,我們加快速度,不是嗎? 我們試著在越來越少的時間做更多的事。 我們把每天的每一刻轉變成 一場朝向終點線的賽跑。 順帶一提,這個終點線我們永遠也抵達不了, 但它畢竟還是一條終點線。 我想問題的癥結在於, 我們有沒有可能從這個慣性思維中跳脫出來? 幸好,答案是肯定的,因為 當我開始環顧四周,我發現 全球已經有了對這種 快總是比較好的,越忙越好的文化的反動。
Right across the world, people are doing the unthinkable: they're slowing down, and finding that, although conventional wisdom tells you that if you slow down, you're road kill, the opposite turns out to be true: that by slowing down at the right moments, people find that they do everything better. They eat better; they make love better; they exercise better; they work better; they live better. And, in this kind of cauldron of moments and places and acts of deceleration, lie what a lot of people now refer to as the "International Slow Movement."
全世界,都有人在做讓我們意想不到的事: 他們在放慢速度, 雖然老一輩的智慧說如果放慢速度,就會被時代拋棄, 但事實上結果卻是相反的。 在正確的時候放慢速度, 我們可以發現能把事情做的更好。 也能夠吃的更好,性生活更和諧,運動起來也更有效果, 工作品質也提升,活得也更好。 在這些時刻,地點以及 減慢速度的行為中 就是很多人稱為的 國際慢活運動。
Now if you'll permit me a small act of hypocrisy, I'll just give you a very quick overview of what's going on inside the Slow Movement. If you think of food, many of you will have heard of the Slow Food movement. Started in Italy, but has spread across the world, and now has 100,000 members in 50 countries. And it's driven by a very simple and sensible message, which is that we get more pleasure and more health from our food when we cultivate, cook and consume it at a reasonable pace. I think also the explosion of the organic farming movement, and the renaissance of farmers' markets, are other illustrations of the fact that people are desperate to get away from eating and cooking and cultivating their food on an industrial timetable. They want to get back to slower rhythms. And out of the Slow Food movement has grown something called the Slow Cities movement, which has started in Italy, but has spread right across Europe and beyond. And in this, towns begin to rethink how they organize the urban landscape, so that people are encouraged to slow down and smell the roses and connect with one another. So they might curb traffic, or put in a park bench, or some green space.
現在,如果你們能容許我小小的虛偽的話, 我來為你們快速的概述一下- 慢活運動是什麽。如果你想到吃, 許多人可能都聽過慢食運動。 源自於義大利,但已經遍及了全世界, 現在在超過五十個國家 擁有超過十萬名會員。 這背後有一個非常簡單且明智的訊息, 就是當我們如果能用不急不徐的速度栽種,煮,食用食物時, 我們就能夠從食物中 得到更多的快樂以及更健康的身體。 我認為有機耕作的蓬勃發展, 以及農人市場的復興, 也説明了另一個事實,那就是 人們急著想要從依照工業化的時程表所製造出的吃的, 煮的以及種植的食物, 脫逃出來的一個實證。 他們想要重新掌握慢速的節奏。 從慢食運動中也發展出了一些 稱為慢速城市的運動,這也是源自於義大利, 並且已經往歐洲及其他地方發展。 在這個運動裏 人們重新思考如何設計城市, 使得居民能放慢速度- 聞聞玫瑰的花香並與他人產生更多連結。 他們可能會禁止車輛通行, 在公園擺上長椅,或是設置一些綠色景象。
And in some ways, these changes add up to more than the sum of their parts, because I think when a Slow City becomes officially a Slow City, it's kind of like a philosophical declaration. It's saying to the rest of world, and to the people in that town, that we believe that in the 21st century, slowness has a role to play. In medicine, I think a lot of people are deeply disillusioned with the kind of quick-fix mentality you find in conventional medicine. And millions of them around the world are turning to complementary and alternative forms of medicine, which tend to tap into sort of slower, gentler, more holistic forms of healing. Now, obviously the jury is out on many of these complementary therapies, and I personally doubt that the coffee enema will ever, you know, gain mainstream approval. But other treatments such as acupuncture and massage, and even just relaxation, clearly have some kind of benefit. And blue-chip medical colleges everywhere are starting to study these things to find out how they work, and what we might learn from them.
某種程度上,這些改變能夠產生一加一大於二的功效, 我認為當一個號稱為慢速城市變成實質上的慢速城市時, 就像是種哲學上的宣言。 宣告世界上其他國家,並告訴在那個城市中的人民說, 我們相信在21世紀 慢速能夠扮演重要角色。 在醫療方面,我認為很多人已經 對傳統醫療快速治療的心態 失去了信心。 全世界數百萬的人反而轉向尋求 互補的或替代性的醫療形式, 這種形式的醫療傾向於使用 較慢,較溫和,更全面性的治療形式。 現在,很明顯地,這些另類的治療方式並沒有一個定論, 我個人對咖啡洗腸法能否獲得主流的認同 仍是報持懷疑的態度。 但其他的治療方式 比如針灸和按摩,甚至只是稍微的放鬆, 很清楚地都有某些的效果。 世界上一流的醫學院都 在研究這些方法是如何發生作用的, 以及我們可以從這學到些什麼。
Sex. There's an awful lot of fast sex around, isn't there? I was coming to -- well -- no pun intended there. I was making my way, let's say, slowly to Oxford, and I went through a news agent, and I saw a magazine, a men's magazine, and it said on the front, "How to bring your partner to orgasm in 30 seconds." So, you know, even sex is on a stopwatch these days. Now, you know, I like a quickie as much as the next person, but I think that there's an awful lot to be gained from slow sex -- from slowing down in the bedroom. You know, you tap into that -- those deeper, sort of, psychological, emotional, spiritual currents, and you get a better orgasm with the buildup. You can get more bang for your buck, let's say. I mean, the Pointer Sisters said it most eloquently, didn't they, when they sang the praises of "a lover with a slow hand." Now, we all laughed at Sting a few years ago when he went Tantric, but you fast-forward a few years, and now you find couples of all ages flocking to workshops, or maybe just on their own in their own bedrooms, finding ways to put on the brakes and have better sex. And of course, in Italy where -- I mean, Italians always seem to know where to find their pleasure -- they've launched an official Slow Sex movement.
性。我們身邊存在著非常多的快速性愛,不是嗎? 我那時正要- 嗯-我沒有要暗示些什麼。 我當時正慢慢地,這麼說吧,前往牛津的路上, 我遇到了一個書報攤,我看到一本雜誌, 一個男性雜誌,標題寫著, "如何在30秒內讓你的伴侶達到高潮。" 所以,現在,即使是性愛 也是放在碼錶上來計算的。 現在,你們瞭解, 我跟大家一樣喜歡快快完事, 但我認為從慢速的性愛中 在房間內放慢速度--能夠獲得更多的東西-。 你用這些更深層的 一種心理上的,情感上的,心靈交流的方式去做, 那你就會因為慢慢的累積而獲得更棒的高潮。 你的身體會得到更多的快樂。 我的意思是,指針姊妹把這件事表達的更清楚,不是嗎? 當他們用歌來讚賞情人間緩慢游移的手時, 幾年前史汀在學習Tantric瑜伽時 全部的人都嘲笑他, 但把時間快轉幾年後,現在你會發現所有年齡層的伴侶 都去參加性學講座 或者在房間靠他們自己的方法 放慢速度,擁有更好的性愛。 當然,在義大利-我的意思是,義大利人似乎總是知道 如何找到他們的快樂- 他們發起了官方的慢速性愛運動。
The workplace. Right across much of the world -- North America being a notable exception -- working hours have been coming down. And Europe is an example of that, and people finding that their quality of life improves as they're working less, and also that their hourly productivity goes up. Now, clearly there are problems with the 35-hour workweek in France -- too much, too soon, too rigid. But other countries in Europe, notably the Nordic countries, are showing that it's possible to have a kick-ass economy without being a workaholic. And Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland now rank among the top six most competitive nations on Earth, and they work the kind of hours that would make the average American weep with envy. And if you go beyond sort of the country level, down at the micro-company level, more and more companies now are realizing that they need to allow their staff either to work fewer hours or just to unplug -- to take a lunch break, or to go sit in a quiet room, to switch off their Blackberrys and laptops -- you at the back -- mobile phones, during the work day or on the weekend, so that they have time to recharge and for the brain to slide into that kind of creative mode of thought.
在工作上- 在世界上大多數的地方- 工作時數已經減少了, 但北美地區是個值得注意的例外。 歐洲就是一個例子, 當人們工作的時數少了, 就能夠尋找提升生活品質的方法。 而且每個小時的生產力也提升。 現在,很明顯的,在法國每週35工時制 有了問題- 太多,太快,太死板。 但在歐洲其他國家,尤其是北歐國家, 也證明了不需要人人都是工作狂 也可能有 一個很強的經濟實力。 挪威,瑞士 丹麥和芬蘭目前都位居 全世界最有競爭力的國家前六名, 但它們的工作時數之短會讓一般美國人都 忌妒到想哭。 而且不看國家的排名, 看看微型公司的例子, 越來越多的公司都意識到 他們需要准許他們的員工 少工作幾個小時,或是 在午餐時間休息一下,在安靜的房間坐著, 關掉黑莓機-在說你呢-後面那個 和手機, 在工作日或假日時,讓他們有時間可以充電, 讓腦袋進入那種 創造型的思考模式中。
It's not just, though, these days, adults who overwork, though, is it? It's children, too. I'm 37, and my childhood ended in the mid-'80s, and I look at kids now, and I'm just amazed by the way they race around with more homework, more tutoring, more extracurriculars than we would ever have conceived of a generation ago. And some of the most heartrending emails that I get on my website are actually from adolescents hovering on the edge of burnout, pleading with me to write to their parents, to help them slow down, to help them get off this full-throttle treadmill. But thankfully, there is a backlash there in parenting as well, and you're finding that, you know, towns in the United States are now banding together and banning extracurriculars on a particular day of the month, so that people can, you know, decompress and have some family time, and slow down.
這些日子以來,不僅是 成人們都工作超時。連孩子也是,不是嗎? 我37歲,我的童年在80年代中期就結束了, 我現在看著孩子們,我很驚訝 他們寫功課 參加教學課程,參加課外活動, 忙碌的程度我們那個世代想像不到的。 從我的網站收到的 一些最鼓舞人的信 都是青少年寄來的, 他們在燃燒殆盡間徘徊,懇求我寫信給 他們的父母親 幫助他們慢下來,幫助他們脫離 全速前進的運轉。 但幸好,父母親間也開始有反思, 我們也可以發現,在美國的一些城市 會團結起來在每個月的特定一天 禁止課外活動,讓人們可以舒解壓力 有更多的家庭時間,並放慢速度。
Homework is another thing. There are homework bans springing up all over the developed world in schools which had been piling on the homework for years, and now they're discovering that less can be more. So there was a case up in Scotland recently where a fee-paying, high-achieving private school banned homework for everyone under the age of 13, and the high-achieving parents freaked out and said, "What are you -- you know, our kids will fall" -- the headmaster said, "No, no, your children need to slow down at the end of the day." And just this last month, the exam results came in, and in math, science, marks went up 20 percent on average last year. And I think what's very revealing is that the elite universities, who are often cited as the reason that people drive their kids and hothouse them so much, are starting to notice the caliber of students coming to them is falling. These kids have wonderful marks; they have CVs jammed with extracurriculars, to the point that would make your eyes water. But they lack spark; they lack the ability to think creatively and think outside -- they don't know how to dream. And so what these Ivy League schools, and Oxford and Cambridge and so on, are starting to send a message to parents and students that they need to put on the brakes a little bit. And in Harvard, for instance, they send out a letter to undergraduates -- freshmen -- telling them that they'll get more out of life, and more out of Harvard, if they put on the brakes, if they do less, but give time to things, the time that things need, to enjoy them, to savor them. And even if they sometimes do nothing at all. And that letter is called -- very revealing, I think -- "Slow Down!" -- with an exclamation mark on the end.
家庭作業是另一件事。在已開發國家間 禁止家庭作業是很興盛的事。 學校過去許多年來堆積很多家庭作業, 現在他們發現,少可能是更多。 最近在蘇格蘭有一個案例 有一間付費的高品質私人學校 禁止給13歲以下的人 家庭作業, 這讓有高度期望的父母親嚇了一大跳,並說 "你以為你是誰-這會讓我們的小孩退步"- 學務長說:"不會的,你們的小孩在每天結束時要放慢速度。" 就在上個月,測驗結果出來了, 在數學,科學,成績都比起去年 平均提升了百分之20 我想這給我們的啓發是 要進入菁英大學,常常是父母親驅使小孩並給他們 過度的照顧的原因, 但這些精英大學開始發現學生的素質 都在下降。這些學生有很好的成績, 他們擁有塞滿課外活動的履歷表, 多到會讓你想要哭得程度。 但它們缺乏活動, 他們缺乏創意式的思考,並獨立思考- 他們不知道怎麼想像。那些常春藤系的學校, 牛津與劍橋等等,都開始給家長一個訊息 就是他們需要放慢一點速度。 比方說在哈佛大學,他們向 大一新生發出一個訊息 告訴他們他們會在生命中得到更多,比起從哈佛得到的更多, 如果他們能夠放慢速度的話。如果他們做得少一些, 但給事情多一些時間,多給一些事情需要的時間, 好去享受事物,品味事物。 即使有時候他們什麼也不做。 那封信稱為-我認為非常啓發人心- "慢下來!"-最後還有一個驚歎號。
So wherever you look, the message, it seems to me, is the same: that less is very often more, that slower is very often better. But that said, of course, it's not that easy to slow down, is it? I mean, you heard that I got a speeding ticket while I was researching my book on the benefits of slowness, and that's true, but that's not all of it. I was actually en route to a dinner held by Slow Food at the time. And if that's not shaming enough, I got that ticket in Italy. And if any of you have ever driven on an Italian highway, you'll have a pretty good idea of how fast I was going.
不論你怎麼看這個訊息,在我看來,都是一樣的。 往往少就是多, 慢一些往往比較好 但是,當然 慢下來可不是這麼容易的,不是嗎? 我的意思是,當我在為我的書做"慢速的好處"的研究時, 我收到了一個超速的罰單, 這是真的,精彩的還在後面。 我當時在前往一個晚餐會的路上 是慢食協會舉辦的。 如果這還不算丟臉的話,我當時是在義大利收到罰單的。 如果你們有在義大利的高速公路開過車的話, 你就會知道我當時開得有多快。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
But why is it so hard to slow down? I think there are various reasons. One is that speed is fun, you know, speed is sexy. It's all that adrenaline rush. It's hard to give it up. I think there's a kind of metaphysical dimension -- that speed becomes a way of walling ourselves off from the bigger, deeper questions. We fill our head with distraction, with busyness, so that we don't have to ask, am I well? Am I happy? Are my children growing up right? Are politicians making good decisions on my behalf? Another reason -- although I think, perhaps, the most powerful reason -- why we find it hard to slow down is the cultural taboo that we've erected against slowing down. "Slow" is a dirty word in our culture. It's a byword for "lazy," "slacker," for being somebody who gives up. You know, "he's a bit slow." It's actually synonymous with being stupid.
但為什麼慢下來這麼困難呢? 我想這有很多種原因。 其中一個是:速度是好玩的-,速度很性感。 這就是腎上腺素的亢奮。這很難能戒掉的。 我認為有種形而上的思考方式 速度變成一種屏障 把我們自己擋在更大更深層的問題之外。 我們的腦中充滿了讓人分心的事以及忙碌, 所以我們也沒必要問 我們好不好?我快樂嗎?我的小孩有好好成長嗎? 政客們有在為我的權益做最好的決定嗎? 另一個理由-我認為大概是最有力的理由- 為什麼我們發現要慢下來這麼困難? 我們建立的文化上的忌諱反對我們慢下來。 慢在我們的文化中是個不好的字眼。 慢是懶散,敷衍的代名詞, 是用來說那些容易放棄的人。 “他有一點慢。“實際上是跟 笨是同義的。
I guess what the Slow Movement -- the purpose of the Slow Movement, or its main goal, really, is to tackle that taboo, and to say that yes, sometimes slow is not the answer, that there is such a thing as "bad slow." You know, I got stuck on the M25, which is a ring road around London, recently, and spent three-and-a-half hours there. And I can tell you, that's really bad slow. But the new idea, the sort of revolutionary idea, of the Slow Movement, is that there is such a thing as "good slow," too. And good slow is, you know, taking the time to eat a meal with your family, with the TV switched off. Or taking the time to look at a problem from all angles in the office to make the best decision at work. Or even simply just taking the time to slow down and savor your life.
我想慢速運動的目的, 它主要的目標就是要處理這個文化禁忌, 並說明:沒錯, 有時候“慢”不見得 就是"不好的慢"。 有次我在M25號公路上被塞住了, 那是條繞著倫敦的環狀公路, 並在那花了三個半小時。我可以跟你說, 那才真的是不好的慢。 但用一個新想法來看, 慢速運動的革命性觀點, 是在說"好的慢"也是有的。 好的慢速就是,花上一些時間 跟家人吃一頓飯,並關上電視。 或是花一些時間在辦公室從所有角度來理解一個問題 並工作上 做出最好的決定。 僅僅需要花一些時間 好好慢下來 好好的品味你的人生。
Now, one of the things that I found most uplifting about all of this stuff that's happened around the book since it came out, is the reaction to it. And I knew that when my book on slowness came out, it would be welcomed by the New Age brigade, but it's also been taken up, with great gusto, by the corporate world -- you know, business press, but also big companies and leadership organizations. Because people at the top of the chain, people like you, I think, are starting to realize that there's too much speed in the system, there's too much busyness, and it's time to find, or get back to that lost art of shifting gears. Another encouraging sign, I think, is that it's not just in the developed world that this idea's been taken up. In the developing world, in countries that are on the verge of making that leap into first world status -- China, Brazil, Thailand, Poland, and so on -- these countries have embraced the idea of the Slow Movement, many people in them, and there's a debate going on in their media, on the streets. Because I think they're looking at the West, and they're saying, "Well, we like that aspect of what you've got, but we're not so sure about that."
現在,自從我的書出版後,我發現 最振奮人心的事就是 大家對書的反應。 我也知道當我的關於慢速的書出來後, 它會被新世代所歡迎, 在商業界,也被津津樂道的討論 以及被一些商業媒體 還有被大公司與 領導機構所接受。 因為在領導階層的頂端的人們,如同你們一樣, 開始會發現在這個系統中 有太多的速度存在了, 有太多的忙碌,是該重新找回 對速度的掌控的時候了。 另一個令人鼓舞的跡象是, 這個觀念不止在已開發國家 開始流傳起來。同時在發展中國家, 在那些即將進入第一級世界體系的國家 如中國,巴西, 泰國,波蘭等等- 這些國家中有許多人已經在擁抱慢速運動的觀念, 在媒體上以及在路上, 也展開了許多的辯論。 因為我想他們在看著西方世界,他們在說, "好吧,我們喜歡你們擁有的觀念, 但我們不是非常確定那是正確的。"
So all of that said, is it, I guess, is it possible? That's really the main question before us today. Is it possible to slow down? And I'm happy to be able to say to you that the answer is a resounding yes. And I present myself as Exhibit A, a kind of reformed and rehabilitated speed-aholic. I still love speed. You know, I live in London, and I work as a journalist, and I enjoy the buzz and the busyness, and the adrenaline rush that comes from both of those things. I play squash and ice hockey, two very fast sports, and I wouldn't give them up for the world. But I've also, over the last year or so, got in touch with my inner tortoise.
所以這一切的一切, 都是可能的嗎? 今天,這就是在我們面前最主要的問題。 要慢下來是有可能的嗎? 我很高興的要告訴你們, 答案絕對是肯定的。 我自己就是一個實證, 一個重塑且改過 的速度狂。 我仍然愛好速度。我在倫敦生活, 我的工作是個記者, 我享受電話的鈴聲以及忙碌感, 以及從這些事產生的腎上腺素的提升感。 我打壁球以及冰上區棍球, 兩個都是非常快速的運動,我不會為了誰而放棄它們。 但我也在去年開始, 開始跟我內在的緩慢感接觸。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
And what that means is that I no longer overload myself gratuitously. My default mode is no longer to be a rush-aholic. I no longer hear time's winged chariot drawing near, or at least not as much as I did before. I can actually hear it now, because I see my time is ticking off. And the upshot of all of that is that I actually feel a lot happier, healthier, more productive than I ever have. I feel like I'm living my life rather than actually just racing through it. And perhaps, the most important measure of the success of this is that I feel that my relationships are a lot deeper, richer, stronger.
這意思是說 我不再 沒來由的讓我自己超載。 我的預設行為模式不再是 一個愛好急促的人。 我再也聽不到 時間的急速戰車逼近我的聲音, 至少不像我以前那樣。 我現在也還是可以聽到,因為我看到我的時間快用完了。 這全部的結論是 我真的比以往更感到充滿快樂,健康, 更有生產力。 似乎我在過著 我的生活,而不只是再匆忙的渡過日子。 也許,最重要的 衡量慢活成功的標準是 我和他人的關係更加地深刻, 豐富且強烈。
And for me, I guess, the litmus test for whether this would work, and what it would mean, was always going to be bedtime stories, because that's sort of where the journey began. And there too the news is rosy. You know, at the end of the day, I go into my son's room. I don't wear a watch. I switch off my computer, so I can't hear the email pinging into the basket, and I just slow down to his pace and we read. And because children have their own tempo and internal clock, they don't do quality time, where you schedule 10 minutes for them to open up to you. They need you to move at their rhythm. I find that 10 minutes into a story, you know, my son will suddenly say, "You know, something happened in the playground today that really bothered me." And we'll go off and have a conversation on that. And I now find that bedtime stories used to be a box on my to-do list, something that I dreaded, because it was so slow and I had to get through it quickly. It's become my reward at the end of the day, something I really cherish. And I have a kind of Hollywood ending to my talk this afternoon, which goes a little bit like this:
對我來說,慢活是如何發生作用及到底是什麼意思 最清楚的說明方法是 用和兒子的床邊故事來說明, 因為那是個 旅程開始的地方。而且結果 也是好的。 在每天的結束時,我進入我兒子的房間。 我不會帶著手錶。我關上我的電腦, 所以我不會聽到郵件進入信箱的聲音, 我配合他的速度降低我的速度,然後我們開始閱讀。 因為孩子們有他們自己的節奏以及內在生理時鐘, 他們不會善用時間, 你計畫用十分鐘的時間來讓他們對你打開心房。 他們需要你配合他們的節奏。 我發現我開始講了十分鐘的故事, 我兒子會突然說, "今天在遊樂場中發生了一些真的讓我很煩的事。" 然後我們就不講故事,開始對談這件事。 我現在發現床邊故事 過去是我的任務清單中的一項 是一個讓我害怕的事, 因為念床邊故事是如此的慢,我必須要快速的帶過它。 現在它變成我每天結束時的一個獎勵, 一種我真的-真的很珍惜的東西。 這個下午的演講 有一個好萊塢式的好結尾, 是像這樣的:
a few months ago, I was getting ready to go on another book tour, and I had my bags packed. I was downstairs by the front door, and I was waiting for a taxi, and my son came down the stairs and he'd made a card for me. And he was carrying it. He'd gone and stapled two cards, very like these, together, and put a sticker of his favorite character, Tintin, on the front. And he said to me, or he handed this to me, and I read it, and it said, "To Daddy, love Benjamin." And I thought, "Aw, that's really sweet. Is that a good luck on the book tour card?" And he said, "No, no, no, Daddy -- this is a card for being the best story reader in the world." And I thought, "Yeah, you know, this slowing down thing really does work."
幾個月前,我正準備要展開 另一個書的介紹行程,我打包好行李。 我當時在樓下的前門,等著計程車, 我兒子下樓來, 他身上帶了一張做給我的卡片。 他把兩張卡片釘在一起,就像這樣, 然後在正面放上他最喜歡的 卡通人物丁丁的貼紙。 他和我說, 他把卡片遞給我,我讀了卡片 上面寫著"給爸爸,愛你的班傑明。" 我想"啊,真是貼心, 這是祝我旅行順利的祝福嗎? 他說"不不不,爸爸-這是一個卡片 給全世界最會說故事的人。” 我想"沒錯,讓事情慢下來還真的有用..."
Thank you very much.
非常謝謝你們。