{"id":3979,"date":"2016-03-28T08:00:31","date_gmt":"2016-03-28T08:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=3979"},"modified":"2016-03-29T16:37:32","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T16:37:32","slug":"life-in-the-slow-lane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=3979","title":{"rendered":"Life in the slow lane"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tortoise\/Darkhorse<\/a>

Tortoise\/Darkhorse Winterwolf\/flickr<\/p><\/div>\n

Some time ago, Dame Verity wrote in this august organ a piece about how difficult it is for her to stop and do nothing. I clearly come from the same stable, because the idea of giving myself \u2018time out\u2019 can be fraught with horror.\u00a0 But for me, doing nothing is all part of being able to slow down and give me and my surroundings a bit of space.\u00a0 Now this does not come easily to me \u2013 and fear not, you won\u2019t see the famous line from William Henry Davies in this blog.\u00a0 (If of course you want to just turn to: http:\/\/mypoeticside.com\/show-classic-poem-7373<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

I\u2019m currently reading a book about the demise of the Russian aristocracy following the 1917 revolution. Actually, demise is far too fuzzy a word for the horrors that befell these people once the Bolsheviks took over. But before their idyllic lifestyle came crashing down all round them, gosh they had a good time. And I\u2019m sure they never worried about whether THEY SHOULD BE DOING SOMETHING or indeed HOW QUICKLY THEY COULD DO IT.\u00a0 Life seemed to be one long round of music recitals, balls, picnics, writing letters and reading, all taken at an elegant leisurely pace.\u00a0 Shame that it required quite so many servants to maintain this.\u00a0 And as we know from Chekhov, their only real problems were wondering how they would cope once the staff returned to Moscow.<\/p>\n

Song writers clearly know the value of life in the slow lane; music from the 20th<\/sup> century is full of exhortations along these lines. One of my mother\u2019s favourite songs was Bing Crosby singing Busy Doing Nothing<\/em> in the 1949 film A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur\u2019s Court<\/em>. \u00a0In 1964 The Beatles released a cover version of New Orleans musician Larry Williams\u2019 song Slow Down<\/em>, and in 1968 the first line of Simon and Garfunkel\u2019s 59th<\/sup> Bridge Street song<\/em> (Feeling Groovy)<\/em> was \u2018Slow down, you move too fast.\u2019<\/p>\n

So plenty of sound advice from the musical fraternity, and of course the common factor with all these people is their creativity.\u00a0 It is well documented that the creative process requires periods of apparent rest and inactivity to allow the brain to process an idea or invention.\u00a0 A friend of mine is married to a composer, and she told me how every so often when they are just sitting quietly at home, her husband\u2019s eyes will suddenly glaze over and he races to his studio to write down the latest bit of the score that has just come to him.<\/p>\n

It was Archimedes who shouted \u2018Eureka\u2019 when he stepped into the bath tub and suddenly understood that the rise in the water level was equal to the volume of the part of the body he had submerged. It is said that he leapt from his bath and ran naked through the streets of Syracuse in the excitement of his revelation. What is notable is that this moment of understanding did not come when he was seated at his desk but when he was having a bit of down time, i.e. taking a bath. For other examples of bathtime revelations, see the review of Bletchley Park<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Francis Crick admitted to being under the influence of LSD in 1953 when he first deduced the principle of the double helix that he and James Watson identified. And one thing for sure about psychedelic drugs, when under the influence they do not allow you to \u2018do\u2019 anything in the normal sense of the word and the notion of time passing is somewhat irrelevant.\u00a0 Crick and Watson also ran out into the street in the excitement of their discovery, but because this was England they ended up in the local pub drinking beer to celebrate. I\u2019m unsure as to what I would find more disturbing \u2013 a dripping wet man running around shouting \u2018Eureka\u2019 or some nutter in the pub telling me he has just discovered the meaning of life.<\/p>\n

So I intend to follow the example set by some of the greatest minds, and learn the art of doing nothing. Who knows what I might come up with?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

a dripping wet man running around shouting \u2018Eureka\u2019 or some nutter in the pub telling me he has just discovered the meaning of life<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,55],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3979"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3979"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4004,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3979\/revisions\/4004"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}