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The Sense That Time Keeps Going Faster


zg7666

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As a kid you run around so fast, the world around you seems to stand still. A summer vacation can stretch on for an eternity. With each birthday we circle back and cross the same point around the sun. We wish each other 'many happy returns.' But soon you feel the circle begin to tighten, and you realize it’s a spiral, and you’re already halfway through...
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I definitely perceive the passage of time more rapidly as I've aged, whereas time passed more slowly when I was younger. I always thought it was because I was agitated and stressed when I was growing up. When you're traumatized, your senses become heightened.

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I think it goes faster when you are too focused on upcoming stuff instead of enjoying the present.

 

"I can't wait until ______!"
the end of winter/summer/year

the next holiday/vacation

life event (kid, marriage, etc)

release date

completion of a long term project

next paycheck

the weekend

the end of the work day

 

Those kinds of things make your brain go into autopilot like in the movie Click -- hurrying to the next interesting thing by skipping over the mundane things.

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On a more serious note, there is also a altered perception of the passage of time related to traumatic events (and other invasive things), called tachypsychia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachypsychia

 

Note the dangers to one that experiments with dopamine management, as well.

 

When relating facts to, say, investigating officers, try not to be certain about timing, to avoid easy invalidation of you as a witness when compared to others.

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I think it goes faster when you are too focused on upcoming stuff instead of enjoying the present.

 

"I can't wait until ______!"

the end of winter/summer/year

the next holiday/vacation

life event (kid, marriage, etc)

release date

completion of a long term project

next paycheck

the weekend

the end of the work day

 

Those kinds of things make your brain go into autopilot like in the movie Click -- hurrying to the next interesting thing by skipping over the mundane things.

 

I seem to have the opposite experience, at least if I am focused on upcoming events that I am looking forward to.  That last hour of the workday on Friday always seems to be the longest of the week.  Unless of course I have something due at the end of the day, at which point I am wishing time would slow down for a bit. 

 

If I am focused in the present, for instance getting lost in some riveting freedomain radio podcasts while driving, the hours fly by like I just drove to work.  My dad brought also this point up several times while we were on a 2-day road trip recently, where I played a series of very well done history podcasts that were each several hours long to pass the time in the car. 

 

I certainly agree that it feels like the years are flying by faster and faster though.  At 30 years old, it feels like the 4 years of college passed by far slower than the 8 years I have been working since graduation.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Time goes faster because each year is a smaller portion of your overall life. When you are one, one year is 100% of your life. When you are thirty, one year is 1/30th of your life.

Best answer imo. In my case, after I got married, got a job, my daily routines got a bit repetitive and that influences the sense of time "flying" by.

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Find new things to do. The younger you are the more new things you discover but day by day things become routine so time seems to pass by quicker.

 

"I believe I can see the future because I repeat the same routine." -Everyday is exactly the same by Nine Inch Nails

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  • 2 weeks later...
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For me, time has gone so fast, I am still coming to terms with how old I actually am. I feel as if I am still 16, when I am close to 30. My body is still doing fine. The strangest thing for me really is seeing grey hairs starting to pop up.

 

I think one of the major contributing factors for time seeming to go faster is that when you are older, you are more busy, and you are not really paying attention so much, you are just letting your body go on autopilot. 

 

Whereas, when you are younger, perhaps 5 or so, every moment is an instance where you are actively paying attention, because you have so much to learn. All the world is new, and instead of autopilot, you are set on "record".

 

While writing this, a memory popped into my head of playing the game "Fallout 3". I remember there was a moment in that game that almost made me cry; the moment in the game after you are born, and you are playing, as an infant, in your room. Your in-game father comes to play with and teach you, as a child. I remember thinking that felt so precious. It put me on that "record" state. I don't often reach that state much these days; life is boring, and I go on autopilot. I wish I could find the record state more often.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I don't smoke weed, but if I did I imagine my thought processes would mimic those of exhaustion. So what if...really what if our perception of time moving faster as we get older is due to the rapidly increasing speed of the expansion of the universe. Since space and time are the same thing and space itself is expanding at an increasing rate, time must be increasing, too....right? Not only that, but if space ever reversed course 180 degrees and started contracting, time would go in reverse.....right? Amiright?

 

 

Dark energy is the amniotic fluid pouring out of the big bang cosmic vagina depositing quantum fetal (fecal? Maybe!) particles into the awaiting hands of father time, ....who treats us all like the red headed adopted middle step-child monkey thing.

 

That ended darkly. Amniotic fluid seems nice. Imma go join P-Jo and have a salad....

 

after i take a nap.

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