Slow down now blog

“If at first, the idea is not absurd, there is no hope for it.” — Albert Einstein

Guy Claxton’s book, Hare Brain Tortoise Mind, is remarkable. It’s a worthwhile read and makes a good case for the practical value of slowing down. He coins a term, “The Undermind.” This is not quite the same as the unconscious, but it is about slow knowing, or intuition. Intuition needs to be nurtured. But intuition is given short shrift in a results-oriented environment.

If it weren’t for science, I would have died at the age of nine from a burst appendix. So I appreciate science. I don’t want to give the wrong impression. But the scientific way of thinking now dominates how we think about everything. We have become myopic. Mathematics and science are the most valued subjects, but the arts are now second-class.

Rational thinking has its place, but when we look at all experience rationally we become lost. We lose the ability of slow knowing. You can’t quantify how much you love someone. You can’t weigh your dreams. And by dreams, I don’t mean aspirations. By dream, I mean the experienced you have when asleep. There are other ways of knowing that reductive science knows nothing about.

Many people agree there is a need for creativity. But the time, effort, and resources to become creative are ignored. The mechanistic goal-oriented results-driven organization is a brute machine. It may be efficient, but it isn’t intelligently creative. People who have had no exposure to the creative process unsurprisingly have a difficult time seeing its value.

Intuition and rationality have been at odds since the dawn of time, but each has its place.

The paradox here is in order to generate new ideas quickly, we need to slow down. Creative ideas need rich soil in which to grow. Ideas need incubating; and that takes time. Claxton cites the mathematician, Henri Pointcaré:

Often when one works at a hard question, nothing good is accomplished at the first attack. Then one takes a rest, longer or shorter, and sits down anew to the work. During the first half-hour, as before, nothing is found, and then all of a sudden the decisive idea presents itself to the mind… The role of this unconscious work in mathematical invention appears to me incontestable, and traces of it would be found in other cases where it is less evident…

See Claxton, Guy, Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind, (HarperCollins, 2000 , p 60)

The first book I read of Claxon’s is called Wise Up. He writes about the difference between D-mode thinking (deliberate) and a more intuitive way. Like the notion of Slow itself, Wise Up, turns educational theory upside down.

Children understand creativity. They’re good at “making things up,” or “let’s pretend.” I’m convinced all of us are naturally creative, but somewhere along the road, we get educated out of creativity. We are told to stop playing about and grow up.

Understanding and engaging in active play opens the mind to new possibilities. Play for children is not only pure enjoyment, it develops their worldview and abilities. Adults often become rigid, but they can slow down, loosen up, and get creative.

Rushing to judgment is a problem. If you judge an idea too soon, you run the risk of killing it before it’s fully born. When we are in a rush to get things done our view is limited. We need a shift. Here are some creativity killers:

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” -Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

“Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.” -Popular Mechanics, predicts the future of computing, 1949.

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” -Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

Ideas need time to be mulled over. They need to be played with.

Can patience become a virtue again?

Laziness is vilified. We are afraid of being thought of as lazy. But not doing anything, and waiting to see what happens is part of the creative way. It’s part of the slow way. If we are to have insight, to change our perspective, then we need to do something differently.

Even though we may be uncomfortable with uncertainty, we need to learn how to manage it and not go looking for unrealistic sure-fire solutions. The reality is we live in a precarious world. Being creative requires us to step out into the unknown, to be willing to fail (or at least reassess what failure might be). And for that we need to slow down now.

Tags: Talk Back by Christopher
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