This new idea from the Japanese Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences caught my attention. (And no, not because I saw The Last Samurai this weekend.)

If I understand them, they're saying slowness, taking your time, and not busting a gut or burning down a rainforest is (paradoxically) encouraged by today's dominant, speedy "I want it now" culture.

Slowness is something one is allowed to pursue during weekends or after retirement from work. But this way of thinking only understands slowness as curing the stress of work. This thinking cannot lead to changes which would eradicate the very mechanisms which produce such stress ... Or, slowness is just a reward for the body which has endured long years of labor and has no more capacity for work ... Here slowness is nothing but a compensation for speed, and it even enhances the dominant logic of speed ... Slowness does not belong to the logic of speed, but resists it. This appeal to radical slowness does not sound as high-pitched as the slogan "eradicate evil." ... But the idea of radical slowness, at least as a general attitude, seems to be spreading slowly but steadily among humanity.[Thanks for this to John at Ideas Bazaar]