Time’s a funny concept. On the surface, it seems so finite, so clearly divided, so easily measured. Yet haven’t we all been in situations wherein our perception of the passage of time varied wildly? We’ve all sat in the interminable lecture about a subject we didn’t care about, constantly checking our watches or phones, noting with extreme displeasure that the last four hours of perceived time was really only about twelve minutes of real time. Or worse, perhaps, finally had that experience we’ve been waiting months to attend, only to find it ending after what seemed about eight seconds flat. You’ve had farts last longer than that wonderful two-hour experience felt! Time was just really not on our side.
When it comes down to it, though, I think we’ve all felt time bending in weird ways, haven’t we? But how can that be? Time is finite . . . isn’t it? One minute equals sixty seconds . . . an hour, sixty minutes . . . a day is twenty-four hours . . . a week, seven days . . . and on-and-on it goes. So with such precision, how can our perception of time differ so much from one experience to another?
It’s not just the circumstances either, is it? I can’t be the only one who’s experienced a painfully slow event followed by one at warp speed only to be dragged down into the molasses again, all within a single day. It happens more often than I’d like. And yet the real strangeness kicks in when you consider that two people in close proximity might perceive that same experience in a remarkably different manner.
By way of example, I could probably sit all day and listen to a group of tweed-sporting historians debate the most mundane of points related to the best friend of the second cousin of some king nobody even remembers, and yet fail to comprehend why at the end I felt like I could eat an entire horse! Yet for many of you—okay, most of you—a single hour of that might feel like the most painful and unending of torture. We’re sitting there next to each other and yet for me, time is passing in a blur . . . I can barely take notes fast enough. For you, however . . . well . . . there’s only so much innocent doodling one can craft before the pictures start to resemble the speaker and a giant, cartoonish guillotine!
Same circumstances . . . at least externally. Same temperature in the room. Same broken fan clicking in the background. Same smells from the lactose intolerant guy two rows back who thought it might be okay to eat lunch at Taco Bell . . . “just this once”. Yet despite the sameness of external circumstances, and our physical proximity, our experience of the passage of time is wildly different. I can’t believe where the day’s gone . . . and you feel like a prisoner finally released on parole!
So, what makes the difference then, if it can’t be attributed to external factors? If its something internal, something tied to how we conceive of an event, then shouldn’t we be able to control it? Why can’t I sit down to the Intermediate Underwater Trigonometry lecture and trick myself into liking it . . . so the experience will pass more quickly? Why can’t I simply force myself to hate a great movie so it’ll last longer? We see people deceive themselves every day, don’t we? The klutz who’s convinced his dance moves are just ahead of their time . . . the karaoke singer who sets dogs howling up to three blocks away . . . the gambler who lives but a single big win from walking away from it all. We see these things and hear these stories every day. So why oh why can’t we make that work to our advantage? I don’t know the reason, but it drives me nuts! Somewhere deep inside, my brain recognizes the self-deception as somehow beneficial, and keeps that perception of time dial right where it is.
Yet there does seem to be one constant in the perception of time that affects us all regardless of other circumstances. Getting older seems to have an odd, quickening effect on everything. The bad times are less onerous than they once were. The good times even faster and more fleeting than before. When I was a kid, it felt like it took twenty years to graduate from high school . . . and not because I was slow!! Now, however, nephews and nieces that I watched crawling around on the floor in odorous, sagging diapers just a few weeks ago—it seems—are graduating college, getting married, and having odorous saggy diaper-wearing little ones of their own. I’ve no doubt it felt like much longer than two weeks to them . . . and yet, here I am, like Rip van Winkle trying to figure out what year it is!
This additional layer of time bending makes it virtually impossible for people of different generations to even talk to one another. Go ahead . . . explain to the four year-old how soon Christmas will be upon us. They just need to be patient. They can do patient right? Or, if you dare, complain to the octogenarian the deep pain and suffering you endured waiting 4.3 instead of an industry standard 2.163 seconds for a Whatsap message to transmit to your friend . . . in the next room. I guarantee the next few minutes will feel like hours and likely include at least one “walking five miles to school, barefoot, in the snow, surrounded by wild, hungry dogs” kind of stories!
The bottom line is time is a funny, fickle thing, and, despite the great lengths to which we go in order to try and tame it, the opposite is, more often than not, true. Time domesticates us and not the other way around. Eventually we bend to our perceptions of time instead of making it serve our needs, wants, and desires.
On that cheery note, I hope you all had a wonderful Labor Day Weekend! And if you can find the time . . . please keep reading.
M. G. Haynes