Slow Living, Reconsidered
I thought sourdough would teach me slow living. Instead, it showed me how much of what we call “slow” is actually just pressure in disguise.
When I first started making sourdough, it was timers, windows, calculations, alarms, and a constant sense of needing to be on time. I couldn’t leave the house. I couldn’t relax. I might as well have been working an unpaid hourly job.
Yes, the process was long. And slow. And very Instagram “slow living”—at least aesthetically.
But it did not feel slow in my body, and that disconnect made me start questioning the entire slow living movement.
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Meet Slow Living Barbie
If we made a Slow Living Barbie, she’d be easy to recognize. She’d be wearing a cottagecore dress. Her hair would be in braids. She’d come with a sourdough starter, a chicken coop, and a few kids running around barefoot. Everything would look calm, handmade, and intentional.
People say it to me all the time: “I just need to slow down more.”
But what does slowing down actually look like?
Because I don’t think it’s Slow Living Barbie. In fact, I think a lot of people trying to live like her feel completely fried—not because there’s anything wrong with that life, but because it often requires more vigilance than people realize.
Not aesthetically. Not in theory. In practice.
Most people can’t define what slow living actually is. They just know what they don’t want—the urgency, the pressure, the constant feeling of being behind—but they don’t have language for what would actually make life feel slower.
Which makes sense, because culturally we’ve defined slow living by how it looks, not by how it feels.
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Slow Living Isn’t a Lifestyle — It’s a Nervous System State
Here’s what I’ve come to believe: slow living isn’t a return to the past. It isn’t a list of activities. It isn’t an aesthetic.
It’s a felt state.
More specifically, it’s life with less friction. Less internal urgency. Fewer systems that collapse if you miss a beat. Less punishment for being human.
A life can look simple and still feel relentless.
A life can look ordinary and feel spacious.
The difference isn’t sourdough versus store-bought bread.
The difference is whether your life requires constant vigilance.
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Responsibility Density (The Part No One Talks About)
One thing slow-living culture rarely addresses is obligation density. How many things in your life:
require constant maintenance
can’t be skipped without consequences
depend entirely on you functioning perfectly
This is why early minimalism was brushing up against something real. Years ago, minimalists talked about renting instead of owning—not because apartments are superior, but because they come with fewer responsibilities. Fewer things break. Fewer systems are yours to manage. More margin when life gets messy.
That’s not aesthetic.
But it is regulating.
I’m not saying you should sell your house or take homesteading off your vision board. I’m saying that slow living often comes not from doing more yourself, but from having less that depends entirely on you.
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What People Are Actually Asking For
When people say they want to slow down, I don’t think they’re asking for chickens, homeschooling, or handmade everything (all great things, just not “slow.”)
I think they’re asking for:
fewer internal alarms
less self-surveillance
less pressure to perform their lives correctly
They’re asking for regulation. And that doesn’t come from copying someone else’s lifestyle—especially when that lifestyle is being performed for an audience.
You can live in a cottage and feel frantic.
You can live in an apartment and feel calm.
Slow living isn’t something you perform.
It’s something you feel.
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A Better Question
So maybe the better question isn’t: How do I live slower? But:
What in my life creates unnecessary urgency?
Where am I being rigid when I could be flexible?
What systems punish me for being imperfect?
Because the slowest life I know isn’t the prettiest one. It’s the one that doesn’t ask too much.
And the bread—because this whole realization happened while making sourdough. I don’t time it perfectly. I don’t have a perfect autolyse. I mix everything together. I stretch and fold when I think about it. I let it sit and do its thing.
It’s become a truly slow process—not because it looks slow, but because it doesn’t wreck my nervous system.
And we get to eat really good bread.
And if I don’t have time, I buy really good sourdough from a local baker. :)
With love,
Lindsay