Maybe the Default Settings Are Too High

I’ve been reading Lord of the Rings for two months and I’m just at the end of the first part. It’s not because I’m not enjoying it. It’s one of the most enjoyable reading experiences I can remember.

From the beginning, I’ve read the whole thing aloud. I’ve found reading aloud helpful for staying engaged — limiting myself to mouth-speed rather than eye-speed means I won’t rush, miss important details, and then lose interest, which has always been a problem for me.

At first I was anxious to read a 1,500-page book this way, because it would take so long. But, as someone pointed out to me, if I’m enjoying it, why would I want to be done with it sooner?

So I tried slowing down even more, and discovered something. I slowed to a pace that felt almost absurd, treating each sentence as though it might be a particularly important one. I gave each one maybe triple the usual time and attention, ignoring the fact that there are hundreds of pages to go.

This leisurely pace made Middle-Earth blossom before my eyes. When I paused after each comma, and let each sentence ring for a small moment after the period, the events of the story reached me with more weight and strength. That extra time gave space for Tolkien’s images and moods to propagate in my mind, which they did automatically.

Some part of me still wanted to rush and get on with it, to make good time, to gloss over the songs and lore to get to Moria and Mount Doom and the other marquee moments of the story. But the more I ignored that impulse, the better the experience got.

By offering the book about triple the usual amount of attentiveness, I was getting about triple the storyness (i.e. meaning, engagement, literary pleasure). Whatever the thing is that I’m seeking when I pick up a novel in the first place, there’s much more of it available at this pace.

Eating Comprehension

This effect reminded me of a paradox around eating I recognized long ago. When you slow down your eating speed, say to half or a third your default speed, you get much more enjoyment out of a smaller amount of food. The extra attention given to each bite allows more of the “good stuff,” whatever that is exactly, to reach you.

What’s paradoxical is that it’s precisely the seeking of that “good stuff” that normally drives me to eat so quickly, and miss most of what I’m seeking. When you try to barrel ahead to access the good stuff quicker, you get less of it in the end. Slow down and much more of it is released.

And it’s released automatically, in both reading and eating. You don’t have to search it out. The good stuff (the meaning in the text, the pleasure in the eating) just rises up to meet you in that extra time you give it. Slowing down, and offering more time to the act of consumption, immediately increases reading comprehension (and eating comprehension).

Both are analogous to slowing down while you vacuum a carpet. If you pass the vacuum head too quickly, you miss half the dirt. Slow down, and you can hear how much more grit is sent skittering up the tube. The suction and bristles are working, but they need more time to do their work fully, to draw up the deeper-lying stuff.

Question the default settings

It seems that my default consumption speeds for reading and eating (and maybe everything else) reduce the rewards of those things significantly, undermining the point of doing either.

Part of it is my own impatience. But I also suspect that modern living, with its infinite supply of consumables, tends to push our rate-of-intake dials too high. I’m not going to run out of books, or snacks, or opportunities to learn something. There’s always more, so not every crust of bread or printed page needs to be appreciated fully.

Internally though, the mind is juggling like Lucy and Ethel on the conveyor belt at the chocolate factory. Our receptors for meaning and appreciation, like the vacuum head, need more time to do their full work, to make all the connections they’re designed to make.

It might sound like I’m just offering clichés – less is more, stop and smell the roses, take your time – and I guess I am. But clichés suffer the same issue: they are often profound insights, consumed and passed on too rapidly for their real meaning to register anymore. You really should stop and smell roses, as you know if you’re in the habit of doing that.

At least see what happens when you reduce your consumption speed – of anything, but especially books, information, and food – by a half, or two thirds. Notice that (1) something in you really wants to plow through at the highest viable setting, and (2) how much more of the reward is released when you slow down anyway.

As far as I can tell, almost everything becomes more satisfying when you give it more time and intention, even things like checking the mailbox or writing a shopping list.

Speed alters taste

Slowing down your rate of consumption will inevitably change what you want to consume. Reading throwaway news articles or AI slop with great care and attention is only going to show you how empty of value it is. Reading dense writing in inky old books, crafted for your mind by great masters, becomes easier without the rushed pace, and the meaning just blooms out of it.

Same with food. Try to savor a cheap, waxy “chocolate” bar, or a bag of store-brand cheese puffs, and you discover a harsh taste that you don’t want to look at too closely. Enjoy a homemade pastry with great attention, and discover there’s even more in it than you realized.

Mass production is good in so many ways, but the faster we tend to consume its fruits, the more we end up seeking things for their glossy, candied surfaces. The more we go for these surface-level rewards, the more the culture focuses on offering only that part – such as TikTok videos, processed food, CGI-forward movies, and public discourse in the form of unexamined talking points.

Who knows how far we’ve drifted from the best modes of consuming the things we value. Once something becomes a norm, it seems like an appropriate standard, no matter how much has been lost. Apparently, reading silently and alone was unusual until as late as the 18^th century. Certainly sit-down meals and cooking at home were.

I don’t mean to sound like a scold. Let’s say none of this is morally good or bad. It’s just that in so much of what we do, we could be getting much more of the part of it that we really seek — but it’s only available at slower speeds.

If you’re curious, try consuming things more slowly, so slowly it seems silly to others — say a third your habitual speed — and see what rises up to meet you.

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Want to quit something in January?

Recently I opened a discussion forum for Raptitude readers who want to give something up for the month of December (alcohol, social media, snacks, etc).

It’s been a real success, and many people want to do something similar in January. If you want to quit something, or just give it up for a month, you’re invited to join.

Follow this link at the end of this post to get an invite.