Writing Directions : I n a frantic society where efficiency is put great emphasis on, maybe it is high time we should take a breath and think about the bad consequences brought about by the head-spinning life. In the following excerpts, the author presents his opinion on the slow lifestyle versus the fast one. Read the excerpts carefully and write your response in about 300 words, in which you should: 1. summarize briefly the author’s opinion; 2. give your comment. Marks will be awarded for content relevance, content sufficiency, organization and language quality. Failure to follow the above instructions may result in a loss of marks. Fast-free Living What Americans would do if they were serious about stopping to smell the flowers? Is the American lifestyle slowing down, in a response to national trauma and the onset of war? Judging from commentaries by cultural analysts and newspaper columnists, the answer is yes. A Boston Globe editorial looked back on a hard year: “But it brought growth, too, and a deeper understanding of just how fragile life is, and how what we often take for granted—the kiss goodbye in the morning, the chat with a friend, the Saturday soccer game—is what matters most.” An observation from The Washington Post: “People seem to walk more slowly. They are off their brisk, self-important stride... Motorists are driving better. They lay off their horns. They don’t jump lights.” From The Dallas Morning News: “Americans are experiencing a sort of ‘cocooning of the heart’, cultural experts say. They’re using this time to reconnect with their families and friends.” If Americans really were beginning to slow down, the contemporary simplicity movement would not be adding another meeting or two a month to our schedules. The antidote to a frenetic work life wouldn’t be something called “power leisure”. The celebration of the new slowness may not reflect reality, but it surely does reflect some degree of yearning. Yet there may be a few bold steps we should take to get us on the path to fast-free living. Backpacks. The task of slowing the country down must begin with efforts aimed at prevention. It should begin early, as an inspection of any schoolchild’s backpack will reveal. These encumbrances typically have a capacity of one and a half cubic feet and hold loads of forty pounds. The contents, unpacked and spread out like a GI’s battle kit, represent hyper-achievement in microcosm. A simple yet revolutionary reform would be to decree that the capacity of school backpacks be reduced by two thirds. Drive-thru windows. The whole point of these amenities is speed, and without intervention drive-thru service will only get faster. According to The Futurist, McDonald’s will soon introduce e-mail billing at some of its drive-thru facilities in southern California . Other chains are experimenting with an E-Z Pass system, similar to the one used for bridge and highway tolls; a transponder in the car would permit purchases to be deducted automatically from prepaid accounts. Electric light. Another issue related to biorhythms is the seemingly inexorable drift toward a 24/7 economy. The rule of thumb is that if anything can be done twenty-four hours a day, it will be; daycare centers and dentists’ offices are now open at midnight. Almost by definition, the maintenance of basic diurnal rhythms is essential to a humane way of life. Political arithmetic may forever doom a significant rise in the gasoline tax, but what about levying a ten-cent-a-watt tax on light bulbs? One happy consequence might be a shift back to daytime baseball. Computer keyboards. Yes, computers have made many aspects of modern life more tolerable, enabling stupendous feats of calculation, storage, and management. But they are also an attractive nuisance, putting unimaginable amounts of sheer capability—to buy, to pry, to surf, to meddle—into the hands of people unaccustomed to its wise use. One way would be to decide that every computer must have two separate keyboards—one with all the vowels and the other with the consonants. The measures outlined above would be a start. Should more impetus be needed, we could ban cup holders from cars, demand that breaking news be delivered only by mail, and add a ball and a strike to the standard at-bat. If Americans intend to take slowness seriously, they need to start picking up the pace. Write your essay on the Answer Sheet.