{"id":171862,"date":"2023-04-30T13:55:51","date_gmt":"2023-04-30T18:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/?p=171862"},"modified":"2023-04-30T13:56:36","modified_gmt":"2023-04-30T18:56:36","slug":"slow-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/slow-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Slow down"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ted Gioia echoes R.A. Lafferty<\/a>:<\/p>\n

IT\u2019S OKAY TO READ SLOWLY<\/p>\n

I tell myself that, because I am not a fast reader.<\/p>\n

I can do speed reading, if it\u2019s absolutely necessary\u2014but I find it painful and exhausting. My natural reading pace is languid, almost lethargic.<\/p>\n

My lifetime reading plan has been my proven path to Nirvana
\nEven more to the point, the books I read must be savored and slowly digested. Proust is one of my favorite authors, but I could only handle his ultra-dense writing in small doses. So I read through his 2,000-page novel at the pace of seven pages per day. I started when I was a teenager, and got to the final page shortly before my 30th birthday.<\/p>\n

Of course, I read many other things during that period, but I always came back to his massive book\u2014taking it slowly, thoughtfully, in the way it deserved.<\/p>\n

For many years, I felt that my slow reading was holding me back. I would be wiser, I would be smarter, I told myself, if I could just read faster. I often keep going back over the same sentences again and again, trying to decipher their inner meaning. This slows me down to a tortoise\u2019s pace\u2014and it\u2019s frustrating.<\/p>\n

But now I believe slowness was a benefit. My learning was deeper and more mind-expanding because I didn\u2019t rush it.<\/p>\n

By the way, I did the same thing when I learned jazz piano. I spent months learning things that could have been mastered in days. But by the time, I was done, I had internalized my learning at a deep level.<\/p>\n

Life is not a race. The journey is its own reward. If we could make the trip instantaneously\u2014like they do with those teleporters in Star Trek\u2014it wouldn\u2019t be worth anything.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See Lafferty’s “The Primary Education of the Camiroi<\/a>.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ted Gioia echoes R.A. Lafferty: IT\u2019S OKAY TO READ SLOWLY I tell myself that, because I am not a fast reader. I can do speed reading, if it\u2019s absolutely necessary\u2014but I find it painful and exhausting. My natural reading pace is languid, almost lethargic. My lifetime reading plan has been my proven path to Nirvana … Continue reading “Slow down”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,29,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-171862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-and-anti-culture","category-sf-and-beyond","category-words"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xam3-IHY","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171862"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":171866,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171862\/revisions\/171866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}