On Relativity

[sdi]

A long time ago—one of the first things I ever posted to this blog—I opined how long life was and wondered why people always say otherwise. These days, time seems to crawl at around a third of the speed I remember as "normal"—that is, a day feels like three, a week feels nearly like a month, etc. The topic came up on this month's Open Post over at Ecosophia (prompted by Cointoss #23), where most responses have simply parroted the conventional wisdom which I disagree with. So the nature of time and why it seems so slow to me but not others has been on my mind today, but I couldn't come up with a solid answer.

Now, I read many fairy tales to my daughter, and ones with riddles are her favorites. Tonight, out of nowhere, she felt like quizzing me before we dug into our bedtime story. "What is the fastest thing in the world?"

"Oh, I know! I've heard this one told a few ways. Is it 'thought?' Or perhaps, 'the wind that travels over the steppes?'"

"Wrong! It's 'time,' daddy."

"Are you sure about that? I think time is pretty slow."

"It's fast for me," she said, and in a sing-song voice she added, "time flies when you're having fun." Then, suddenly serious, "Next riddle! What is the slowest thing in the world?"

Now I was curious what she'd say, so rather than answer her, I waited an appropriate interval and said, "I'm stumped. What's the slowest thing in the world?"

"It's 'time' again, but when you're bored."

Now, this struck me as a very astute observation—indeed, an obvious one, but one I'd totally missed. And, of course, my daughter knew nothing about the thoughts that were on my mind. So the synchronicity left me thoughtful. On reflection, I think she's right: human life, and indeed the material world as a whole, is very boring—perhaps this is because I've been at it too long, and perhaps this is why I am so fixedly determined to move beyond it, and why there is little save metaphysics and math that continues to hold much interest for me.

There's a silver lining, though: it seems most people have a very difficult time meditating, like sitting still for a few minutes will kill them or something. I've never had that problem: meditation is no more boring than anything else, and after a few years of practice it gets to be a lot less boring than most other things. Maybe that's another reason I keep at it so.

In any case, it's nice to have a solid answer that "feels right" to a question that's been plaguing me for years.

Comments

[sdi]

FOR YOU NERDS OUT THERE: "Thought" being the fastest thing in the world is pretty common, but the reference I remember is the Norse myth of Thor and Utgarða-Loki. "The wind that travels over the steppes" is from the Russian fairy tale of Clever Katya. I've never heard of time being fast or slow in a riddle before—usually it just eats everything (e.g. in the Hobbit).

[thinking_turtle]

A few months ago I went on a holiday trip to the mountains. After traveling I turned my phone off. My days were filled with walking, eating or reading books on an e-reader. I was surprised by how much this slowed time! It was a happy time, yet I did not feel bored or like having fun.

Time seems fast when I'm distracted, hurried, pressured. It seems slow when I have few obligations, think deeply, enjoy nature. The speed of time may be a property of the state of the mind.

[boccaderlupo]

Neither here nor there, but reading on radiesthesia and the speed of thought, it was apparently rather tightly defined (Mermet):

"According to [Lakhovsky's] theory, whenever thought is concentrated on a certain object, the radiation of that thought travels round the earth in one seventh of a second."

[temporaryreality]

I disagree with the fractional-part-of-life theory too. I experience time differently at... different times (!). This week, I'm having quarter-hour-passing in a blink moments. I'm distracted a lot, too, which is a probable cause or correlation. We have a kitten in the house and maybe we're on her time, which is probably one long continuous moment after moment after momentary distraction.

And the days' decreasing length make 24-hour periods feel like they're flying by because so many fewer hours are usable to the degree they were when there was more sunlight. Once we turn lights on, it feels like it ought to be bedtime.

I've also experienced what we laughingly called a time vortex. We had house and car clocks synchronized, would leave the house in plenty of time to get to school, and yet in the 20 feet from front door to car, we'd consistently lose 5 or more minutes. I'd check the clocks - they were fine. We never figured that one out (and it wasn't like I'd look at the clock and then spend 5 minutes looking for my keys - it was out the door and to the car - unless I was simply unconscious of what I was actually doing as I went out the door). It stopped happening when we moved out of that house.

A lot has been said by people smarter than me about flow state and sense of time (due to engagement with the subject at hand). Perhaps you're in a state of existential flow. Or maybe since there's some impatience to "move on" you're "suffering" from the fate of all children who are eager to open Christmas presents: December takes forever.