Against Blur
Is it a truism that time seems to move faster as we get older? Does everyone reading this have the sense that in general, it's true that time seems to move faster as you age? Do people in other cultures have the same sense?
My non-original theory is that our sense of time stretches out when experience is packed with novelty, with the thrill of the new. As children, everything is new. As we age, we tend to relax into patterns that we enjoy, or that are at least as familiar and as comfortable as we can make them. Familiar patterns give us few hooks for strong memories, and without these hooks-of-the-new, memories of days that were originally distinct blur together. The blur gives many people the sense that time went too quickly.
So I keep a diary, of sorts. I self-mockingly call it my Frontier-Diary when I'm keeping track of everyday things, in honor of the frontier women's diaries my Mom loved reading. The frontier diaries tracked the weather, what people ate for breakfast and dinner, the time they turned out the light. Pretty much what my Mom's diaries covered, especially at the end.
My diaries veer off that frontier, headed for the fringe. I track the non-usual, the remarks and oddities and moments that make each day distinct. When I screw up by not experiencing anything solidly new in a given day or week, I have a record that shows that the days were not alike.
After 30 years of keeping these journals, I notice that my subconscious has received the message. When friends say, "Wow, this year went by so fast," I may nod, but I don't feel it. Where we actually live, it's always the Frontier, where the familiar can instantly come to a screeching or lilting end.
My non-original theory is that our sense of time stretches out when experience is packed with novelty, with the thrill of the new. As children, everything is new. As we age, we tend to relax into patterns that we enjoy, or that are at least as familiar and as comfortable as we can make them. Familiar patterns give us few hooks for strong memories, and without these hooks-of-the-new, memories of days that were originally distinct blur together. The blur gives many people the sense that time went too quickly.
So I keep a diary, of sorts. I self-mockingly call it my Frontier-Diary when I'm keeping track of everyday things, in honor of the frontier women's diaries my Mom loved reading. The frontier diaries tracked the weather, what people ate for breakfast and dinner, the time they turned out the light. Pretty much what my Mom's diaries covered, especially at the end.
My diaries veer off that frontier, headed for the fringe. I track the non-usual, the remarks and oddities and moments that make each day distinct. When I screw up by not experiencing anything solidly new in a given day or week, I have a record that shows that the days were not alike.
After 30 years of keeping these journals, I notice that my subconscious has received the message. When friends say, "Wow, this year went by so fast," I may nod, but I don't feel it. Where we actually live, it's always the Frontier, where the familiar can instantly come to a screeching or lilting end.