A Brief Mystery of Time
I am fascinated by how time is relative. I don’t mean in the Einsteinian sense of the word. But I think about when I was a child and my mother would say such and such an exciting event or visit would not be for an hour, it seemed like an age. ‘A whole hour?’ I would whine. Now in the same circumstances, the response is more likely to be ‘Gosh, we’ve only got an hour’
It seems like the year is racing by. Could it be July already! But then I think back to Christmas and it feels like ages ago. So much has happened between then and now.
When you go on holidays, it can feel like you're away forever. But you get back to work and it’s like you’ve never been away.
When you’re caring for your very young child, there's drudgery and even boredom amidst the joy and wonder. Then suddenly they’re in school, then high school and you wonder where all that time went. When advising new parents to make the most of those early years, it’s commonly said ‘The days are long, but the years are short’. And it’s true - I speak from experience.
Think about how quickly the ‘just five more minutes’ in bed on a cold morning passes, while at the gym, when the aerobics instructor yells encouragingly, ‘Just five more minutes!’, your heart sinks and it seems like an eternity of pain ahead.
I have no idea what is going on here but these experiences are real, and I am sure I am not alone. Is a variation of E=mc² required? Perhaps one that accommodates complex variables such as weather, geography, mood, age.
Age - now there’s a big one. Time certainly goes faster as you get older. Maybe it’s because the race speeds up as the finish line approaches. Sorry; that sounds a bit grim doesn’t it? I do have this theory, not yet patented, that we live in a time vortex. We start at the top where the diameter is wide and the rotation is slow. Then, as we age and progress down the vortex, the circuits become shorter and we spin faster and faster until we fall through a hole in the bottom. Literally falling out of time. It does explain a lot, though I grant you, there are a few loose ends. Not bad for a cold Friday though.
