Why Slower Living...?
/Journey of Discovery
When I started my journey to respond to the personal frustrations that life was throwing up at me I really didn’t have a known badge or title to give to this overwhelming feeling that a change was needed - a feeling that something was missing. I had recognised that there was something not quite right in life - yet by anyone’s estimation I had a great life. I had some success professionally, was in a senior position, was respected and liked, I had a great family, beautiful wife, great kids, lived in a safe, comfortable and sought after suburb, travelled overseas occasionally for holidays…and so on - I was living the dream! If this was the case, then why did I feel as if there was something fundamental missing. Was my feeling a response to my mid-life feelings of success/failure/fulfilment. Well, yes and no really. But I might leave this to a future post…But underlying all of this was the question of “did I simply need to toughen up?” or answer the allegation “what did I have to complain and worry about anyway…!”
For me this feeling stoked a very real fear that I was about to have some mid-life crisis or blow out - a middle class response to needing more…I hoped not. Was I about to find myself buying an expensive sports car and driving off into the sunset - well no.
So what was it that I was feeling and what could or would I be capable of doing in response - importantly without detriment to my family. Fortuitously the sport car was out - I have three kids!
I pondered my life, successes, failures, my place in the world. Now, I will be honest with you, I pondered for a long time during which I found that I accepted these feelings and at other times I rejected them, pushed them away and thought I just needed to pull myself together and get on with it - what was I worried about - many people were in a worse position - toughen up, grow up and stop acting like a baby. But ultimately, the feelings persisted, didn’t retreat into the distance, in fact they strengthened.
At this point I had I convinced myself that this feeling, of something ‘fundamental’ not being quite right, was very real. It was not a mid-life crisis event - there was something more to it… My thoughts wheeled around but ultimately, landed on a very positive feeling that the sheer pace of modern day life was at the core of how I was feeling. The pace simply seemed simply overwhelming at times, and yet, I always managed to keep up, running as hard as needed to maintain my place in the world. The pace of work, the pace of technology, the pace of family life and commitments, the instant gratification of life, the bombardment of stuff - stuff that didn’t really add to the real purpose or worth of life.
It was clear that I needed to slow down, I needed to focus on what was of real worth to our life, I needed to focus on my physical and emotional self, I needed to find the true meaning of life…It all pointed towards an approach to life that was:
simpler - avoiding unnecessary distractions
more deliberate or purposeful - a focus on making personal choices and not doing what society anticipated or expected of me
personal to me and my family
conscious of my footprint on the world
focused on bettering myself - physically and mentally
A slower, more meaningful, and truly conscious way of living. I hadn’t had a recognition of the problem initially or an identity to give it. I now had one. I needed to slow down - I needed to do some slower living. Easy said…
Interestingly, when I started to make some sense of this, I found there were bread crumbs of activities that showed that I had perhaps already recognised the core issue and had been responding in varied ways over the past few years. Nothing earth shattering, but certainly sign posts.
I’d worked hard to reject the notion of upgrades to my technology, I’d had enough of the incessant offer of a new device or software upgrade and started to ask why - was it needed - could I live well without the newest…yes I could and it would certainly be better for the environment
I had taken on a retro approach to photography - going back to film, even developing my own film. This was in part an aesthetic approach for a particular look and feel,. But it was far more.
At its heart it addressed the feeling that the constant upgrades in technology was simply too rapid (technology never stands still) and the speed at which I could use film, by necessity, would slop down my process. No more blasting away through a few hundred shots and checking the back of the screen, rather 24 or 36 shots on a roll of film and no way to review until I processed them.
[The 24 shots on one 35mm film eventually reduced to 12 shots on a medium format camera. At one point I toyed with Tintype (wet plate) photography - an 1800’s process pre-dating film…now that is slow and the tech…well its old and not prone to upgrades…but that’s another story. Perhaps I was in danger of becoming a hipster. All I needed was a beard. And wouldn’t you know it, I cultivated a beard…! OK so this wasn’t really a response, it was a holiday beard that kind of felt comfortable and hung around for a year or two. This slower form of photography graduated into a slower and more deliberative way of taking shots and expanded to slow photo walks. This was good for the soul, the heart and the mind.
Having identified the cause of my unrest what to do about it? How could I adopt a slower life…more on this in another post.
