Time passes more more quickly as we get older. That certainly seems the case to me. My 50’s seem to be passing more quickly than either my 30’s or 40’s. But maybe that’s because I’ve been having such a blast.
Time passes faster as you get older
I looked up the phenomena of time passing more quickly as we age. Apparently memories come from new events. We think of events as they happen and afterwards and our perception of time varies about those events afterwards. When you look back later and you packed lots into the event we perceive it lasted longer and if it was a good experience we perceive that time passed more quickly. I guess also if you have more years to look back on and you only remember certain things then it will feel like time passed quickly between those events.
When I look back over the blog I can’t believe I have written something so many months in a row. I’ve missed days and even weeks but never a month since I started in 2012. When I read back, some events stick clearly in my mind but others need to be read for me to remember. So really good and really bad things are easier to find, and things that just happened take some looking for. But it is always fun to look back and find them. I’ve been lucky, the early part of my blog had more painful memories – the end of my marriage and the death of my dad. While the happier stuff has been more recent.
What will we remember of 2020?
My life has become simpler. I have fewer overall responsibilities that aren’t to myself and Master. My son is married and self sufficient and for the moment my mum is well. I guess middle age is meant to be easier and so it is. 2020 will probably be the year of almost no memories, other than that it existed. 2021 is probably going to be similar. So there will have to be the years before and afterwards.
Day to day during the height of the pandemic days seemed to pass slowly. With nowhere to go and nothing to do. But suddenly a week, a month and now a year had passed. The fastest time was definitely when we were in France, so maybe the idea of good times appearing to pass more quickly are right.
Of course each day is 24 hours long and each week 7 days etc. So it is only perception. But it does make you think and that is for sure.
I think our perception of time changes relative to the percentage of our lives it involves.
When you are 5 years old, the distance between last Christmas and the Christmas upcoming seems interminable, because to wait a whole year for something is to wait the equivalent of 20% of your life span.
When you’re 50, one year is nothing. It’s only 2% of your entire existence. It barely registers.
I sometimes wonder how this percent-perception influences memory. Because people who have Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia eventually regress to the memories of their childhood — a time of life during which, comparatively, memories had a long time to seed and grow.
Human perception of the passage of time is akin to the movement of an accelerating steam locomotive. In childhood, time passes slowly, especially if you are waiting for something. It is impossible to endure when these hours or minutes will pass. At an older age, when the locomotive has accelerated, the days follow each other as poles flash outside the window of a moving carriage. And yet the train is still picking up speed.