Is life moving faster? Some people say it is.
A study done in large cities around the world found that the speed of people’s walking in 2007 had increased 10% in just a decade. That was 17 years ago! People might be walking even faster now. And it turns out attention spans are getting shorter too, with the average adult able to closely pay attention for only about 8.25 seconds which is 4 seconds shorter than 20 years ago!
This isn’t just in big cities or for people in stressful jobs. There are so many things that call to us throughout the day that we can feel pulled in a dozen directions. The modern world is all about the next thing trending, the newest life hack, or the latest scandal. If we aren’t careful life can speed past us and leave us dizzy and in the dust.
In some ways this might be a newer phenomenon, but there was a book written in 1953 that predicted this speed. The book is Fahrenheit 451. It’s not a long story and the pacing is rushed the whole way through. I like when an author can make a reader physically feel the mood he’s trying to express without directly saying it. From the very beginning there is a frantic feeling in the main character Guy. By the end of the book you’re practically panting from the speed, terror, and exhilaration of all the action and drama of the story.
Guy is a fireman who burns things because, in this dystopian future, firefighters don’t put out fires, they start them. And the things they start on fire are books or houses with books in them.
Guy begins to question the purpose of burning books and starts to wonder what is so special in them when he meets a young girl named Clarisse. Clarisse is different because she doesn’t move fast, she isn’t always staring at a TV screen, and she doesn’t have a “shell” in her ear to listen to the voices that tell everyone what to do. Rather she talks looking directly at him and also looks around the world with eyes of wonder. This interaction sends Guy down a different path that leads him to meet a former professor, Faber, who begins to explain why books are so important and why humanity needs to start reading them again.
He explains to Guy that books have quality, texture, pores, and can go under the microscope. He says that good writers touch life often. When we read these good books they cause us to slow down and think, which is a form of leisure. And the other thing reading gives us, Faber explains, is the right to carry out actions based on what we learn from the interaction of good books and leisure. Books make us free thinkers. They help us to understand the ultimate good.
There were two things I caught right away when I read this. The first is that only good books can do this. Only the good ones have pores and texture and stand up to scrutiny. There are plenty of books out there that are empty and purposeless and can leave us feeling worse after reading them. Instead of burning the books the antagonists in Fahrenheit 451 should have just encouraged more reading of the empty and vapid. After all bad knowledge drives out good knowledge.
The second thing I noticed was the mention of leisure. This is a topic that I come across a lot in books I read. It’s sadly becoming more of a buzzword and less of a lifestyle, but we need to revive it as a practice or we’ll be lost as a society. Leisure is critical to our mental wellbeing. It’s so important that the German author Josef Pieper wrote a book called Leisure: The Basis of Culture. Without leisure and something deep to contemplate our lives can begin to feel like they’re spinning out of control. Spinning wildly, pulling in more directions, walking and talking faster and faster.
But life doesn’t have to move that fast. We can order our lives to make them more restful and leisurely. With a little bit of focus and a commitment to setting aside time we can slow our walk and increase our attention span. The same answer Faber had for Guy will work for you. Read good books that have texture, pores, and ask big questions of life. Take undistracted time to read those books. And after reading them, think about what you read and ask yourself if there are any actions that you need to take. These steps are almost too deceptively simple. But they work.
A decade ago, I began to slowly change what I read and how I read. When I look back, I can see large swings in my worldview and in my approach to other people. It might be just age, but I don’t think it is. I’m a better person now because of my reading and leisure. I have more confidence and I’m definitely more empathetic. I’m not perfect in any way. But this lifestyle has helped me be calmer and more at peace. It’s possible for anyone to start resetting their internal clock, by setting aside 15 minutes a day to read quietly. Soon 15 minutes won’t be enough time, and that’s when you’ll know you’re on the right track.
It seems too simple, and it really is. Why not begin today with the story of Guy, Faber, and Clarisse in Fahrenheit 451?