The Beauty of Being Slow

When I was really young, I lagged behind some of the other kids in school when it came to pop culture. All of a sudden these kids were listening to rock on the radio and going out to horror movies, while I remained a little more sheltered. Naturally, I took some shit for it. I remember once, desperate to seem at least marginally cool, I claimed to be a fan of Led Zeppelin. I was challenged to name on song, and couldn’t, and my shame was complete.

Luckily, I have a very short memory for shame, as anyone who has gone out for a drink with me can attest.

The lesson stuck with me, though, and in High School and College I became one of those people who worked really hard to be on the cutting edge of everything. The first to hear about a band, the first to see a movie, the first to refuse to read a book for English Class because he could write a paper on it and get an “A” without actually reading it, a skill I carried with me through my entire education. I did that for a long time. I refused to listen to spoilers, too, because I wanted to rush out and see that movie or TV show right away.

Now? Not so much.

These days, I am in far less of a hurry. I wait. I wait for reviews to come in. I wait for TV shows to hit their stride. I wait for songs to filter up through the chaff. And you know what? It’s SO MUCH BETTER. Because I know longer watch things and realize I’ve wasted another two hours of my life. I no longer waste my time worrying about being on the cutting edge, because there is, actually, zero value in being the first person to know about something. And spoilers? Fuck spoilers. If something isn’t able to stand up to spoilers, it wasn’t very good in the first place.

Part of this, of course, is due to technology. In the ancient days, otherwise known as my youth, if you missed a TV show or movie, good fucking luck ever seeing it again. Certain classics got re-run all the time, but generally speaking if you missed it on its first run, you were SOL. Today with DVDs and on-demand and the Pirate Bay, seriously, you can watch just about anything any time. The better question is, should you? Because most of the stuff out there isn’t worth all that much effort, and we all know it. The vast majority of the entertainment you consume — including, probably, my own books — will be completely forgotten in due time, and you might be forgiven for wondering why you’re wasting your time on it. So why bother breaking a sweat to experience it in the first place?

That’s where the Slow Method pays dividends: By the time I make an effort to actually see/read/listen to something, there’s at least some reason to expect it all to be worth my time. The question is, is my time really all that valuable? Nope. Carry on.