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Why time seems to pass faster as we age

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Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#51

Post by dougmwne »

I’ve learned that the passage of time is extremely relative. My college years were extremely full of new experiences and they feel like ages. Once I started working, my life was very rote and consisted mainly of driving from home to work and back again. I worked a lot of hours and vacations and weekend trips were infrequent. Time flew by.

Then I ditched settled life and started traveling year round with a couple of bases i spend more time in between traveling. I’ve learned that the change in environment keeps putting the mind back into a more neuroplastic state where we are more open to the experiences around us, can change our habits more easily and just generally turn off autopilot for awhile.

I’ve been doing this for about 9 years. It’s been like a century. I feel like a very different person then when I started. I have some friends who still live in the same city at the same job that I left originally and it absolutely blows my mind that they stood still while it feels like I went to Mars and back.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#52

Post by bongodongobob »

dougmwne wrote: post #51

I’ve learned that the passage of time is extremely relative. My college years were extremely full of new experiences and they feel like ages. Once I started working, my life was very rote and consisted mainly of driving from home to work and back again. I worked a lot of hours and vacations and weekend trips were infrequent. Time flew by. Then I ditched settled life and started traveling year round with a couple of b…

Yeah I can't believe more people don't just travel for a decade.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#53

Post by radlad »

bwestergard wrote: post #7
dartos wrote: post #3

I think mediation and gratefulness is a good way around this too. If your take explicit time to recognize and examine the world around you, even in your backyard, time seems to stretch and you notice and retain more. I’m lucky enough to have lots of different colored birds show up in my backyard, so sometimes I sit out there and wait for them. It’s not exciting, but every time I see one it’s a new memory and those ne…

If you're not already aware, Cornell offers a bunch if resources to enhance your birding experience. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/

I love Cornell's Merlin app for sound-based identification of birds.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#54

Post by avgcorrection »

I think with these things it helps to reflect. If you reflect you can either glean the truth about it or make up some intuition that is instrumentally useful. I think a lot of use manage to reach some wisdom milestones completely independently by just reflecting.

And if you are concerned about this feeling of time going by faster: being less of a tunnel-visioned adult who is mostly focused on the extrinsic can maybe counteract this feeling.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#55

Post by rcbdev »

bongodongobob wrote: post #52
dougmwne wrote: post #51

I’ve learned that the passage of time is extremely relative. My college years were extremely full of new experiences and they feel like ages. Once I started working, my life was very rote and consisted mainly of driving from home to work and back again. I worked a lot of hours and vacations and weekend trips were infrequent. Time flew by. Then I ditched settled life and started traveling year round with a couple of b…

Yeah I can't believe more people don't just travel for a decade.

It's not as unreasonable as you think - even in lower income / high tax burden countries like Austria an avg. net salary is enough to keep on travelling to all kinds of places.

I know people who work for the state government who keep appearing in India, Thailand, Brazil etc. when we're in meetings - usually they're billed as external consultants to avoid tax liability issues.

The true crux is that most people don't actually want the digital nomad lifestyle, humans naturally seek out some form of stability.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#56

Post by AltruisticGapHN »

dartos wrote: post #3

I think mediation and gratefulness is a good way around this too. If your take explicit time to recognize and examine the world around you, even in your backyard, time seems to stretch and you notice and retain more. I’m lucky enough to have lots of different colored birds show up in my backyard, so sometimes I sit out there and wait for them. It’s not exciting, but every time I see one it’s a new memory and those ne…

Completely non scientific theory, although inspired by McGilchrist's "The Divided Brain" I'd wager that as we age the left hemisphere takes more and more of our awareness as we map the world internally and we tend to live more and more from "what is already known" as opposed to present experience.

I too have hundreds of hours of meditation and I remember the feeling of time was very much affected. One night I remember out of sheer stubborness I sat for 5+ hours and I always remember the next week felt like it was a month.

It doesn't have to do with having "new" experiences, or new memories, or doing anything "interesting". It has to do with how we attend to the world.

And as Gilchrist pointed out this is being worsened as the devices we use day to day like smartphones, which aren't inherently bad, tend to stimulate mostly the left hemisphere unless you just listen to music. All the time you're going after buttons, notifications, looking at the icons, you're just continually sucked back into the world of the left hemisphere : icons, words, symbols, "things" to do or that could be done, things that could happen, emails, posts, likes, whatnot.

Actually I think it was already shown through EEGs that long time meditators, buddhist monks, had some areas of the brain more developed.. which would seem to support my theory likely those areas are related to the right hemisphere (and hence the right hemisphere's qualities such as ability for compasssion, seeing the whole, seeing things in context, ... and therefore seeing one's life in context as well instead of an old tape repeating in your mind everyday).

edit: also if you think logically, then it makes sense that the common intuition that having new experiences, or adding more variety in your life would make time feel like it goes by slower, but it is not because of "new" experiences, but as in my theory above, because those new experiences stimulate the right hemisphere, as you become more focused and attentive to what is happening NOW. In fact by definition any new experience will stimulate the right hemisphere. So if you dont have the $$$ to go out and enjoy the world, or take a vacation the good news is you'll probably enjoy the benefits of right hemisphere activation by doing... NOTHING! (ie. meditation, focused attention on the breath or any one of many techniques all revolving around developing concentration and attention) :)

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#57

Post by xahrepap »

leokennis wrote: post #43
jvanderbot wrote: post #17

I've been journalling for 10+ years. In addition to forcing me to actually write down what happened that day, reviewing old entries provides a feeling of history that makes life feel soooo long and so rich. I can review my now-wife's rocky courtship and feel grateful we made it. I looked back 3 years ago and found the day our children were conceived :D (we have twins). I can review the anxieties of my PhD years, etc…

I am trying journaling as well but most days I don't know what to write...most days I'm not really doing special things, I have no special feelings. These days are enjoyable because I like my work and love my family, but I don't get further than "went to work, afterwards cooked and played with , in the evening "... What are you journaling on a daily basis?

Slightly different angle: I’ve been digitizing my grandparents’ journals. Something I’ve appreciated is the mundane.

“Had a headache. Went to bed early” seeing how often my grandpa was sick was very eye opening to me.

“Got the X repaired/replaced. Cost me $Y and it took Z days to finish”

“I sat and just visited with $Child. What a good kid. He’s just a teen. He told me about his friends and school”

Etc. I don’t know. I guess reading a normal life makes me feel better. Growing up I thought they were perfect. Seeing they were people just like me with very similar struggles is actually fun.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#58

Post by jollyllama »

leokennis wrote: post #43
jvanderbot wrote: post #17

I've been journalling for 10+ years. In addition to forcing me to actually write down what happened that day, reviewing old entries provides a feeling of history that makes life feel soooo long and so rich. I can review my now-wife's rocky courtship and feel grateful we made it. I looked back 3 years ago and found the day our children were conceived :D (we have twins). I can review the anxieties of my PhD years, etc…

I am trying journaling as well but most days I don't know what to write...most days I'm not really doing special things, I have no special feelings. These days are enjoyable because I like my work and love my family, but I don't get further than "went to work, afterwards cooked and played with , in the evening "... What are you journaling on a daily basis?

I have the opposite problem. I could write a page of literary prose about every day. Bulleting feels like it would be doing an injustice. So I do nothing.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#60

Post by jzm2k »

zubairq wrote: post #38
jvanderbot wrote: post #17

I've been journalling for 10+ years. In addition to forcing me to actually write down what happened that day, reviewing old entries provides a feeling of history that makes life feel soooo long and so rich. I can review my now-wife's rocky courtship and feel grateful we made it. I looked back 3 years ago and found the day our children were conceived :D (we have twins). I can review the anxieties of my PhD years, etc…

Great idea. i should try journaling more to make life feel longerr and richer too. Thanks

I'd like to recommend giving Daylio [1] a try if you want to start journaling. Someone on HN recommended this two years ago and I decided to try it because all past attempts at journaling had failed miserably after few weeks. I'm now on a 700+ day streak and I'm really happy that I started doing this 2 years ago. So much has happened and it's all documented. It takes so little effort to add an entry for the day and reading past entries is fun because what actually happened past year is not just a blur but a detailed record of activities, words and photos.

[1] https://daylio.net/

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