Slowing down time 

Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’
Into the future

–Steve Miller Band

Time is a slippery concept, especially if you consider quantum physics. Which, to be clear, I am not equipped to do.

It doesn’t take an Einstein to understand that time is relative, all it takes is memory. Think about the nearly infinite last 5 minutes before the end of the last day of school in the third grade and then compare that to the entire last 10 years.

If you’re over 40, they probably seem to have taken about the same amount of time.  Just getting older makes time go by at an ever escalating rate. How often do you hear a 5 year old say “isn’t it Christmas YET?” while a 50 year old says “I can’t believe it’s Christmas again ALREADY.”  Is that just a question of proportion? The month before Christmas is a bigger percentage of a 5 year old’s life than it is of mine.

No, I’m not going to calculate it. Why? Because, math. I don’t even look up facts in my blog–do you really think I’m going to do math?

Anyway.

NO. I’m not going to. It would be easier if years were on the metric system, but there’s an awful lot of dividing by twelve and thirty-one and stuff.

Sometimes I want it to slow down. When I think about how slowly time seems to pass when I’m bored, depressed or sick, I think maybe I can fool myself.  When you are doing a lot of things, time seems to go by  more and more quickly. So sometimes I do…nothing. I read a book. I pet the cat. I make tea. I watch old movies. I just exist. Just to see if time slows down.

It does, but just a little. Not nearly as much as it does if I’m depressed or sick. Bored? It happens so seldom…I just don’t get bored. There is always something to read or think about.

Meditating when my knees hurt seems to work, but you can’t count on that.

Being miserable works too, but it seems like a high price to pay for slowing down time. Same with being sick.

So, what, we just have to live with it? Like death and taxes? It’s the price for being entertained easily?

I’m not sure that’s exactly it, but I think it’s close.

People who have things to occupy their minds probably see time speeding by. They’re enjoying their lives, their friends, their families. They have hobbies to occupy their minds and their hands.

The ones who get bored don’t have those resources, or don’t take the same amount of enjoyment in them.

All in all, it’s an excellent trade off.

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