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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

#111

Post by EEMac »

fufufu123 wrote: post #94
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…

You're apparently in a good place so looking back is your path to your joyful present. I'm in a bad place so looking back is my seeing back when I was still hopeful for my various life goals. I'd meet someone and have someone to share my life with, do activities with, travel with, raise kids with, etc. I never met that person and now at 60+ that's nearly impossible so looking back hurts. It hurts a-lot. Seeing the op…

I hope things get better for you.

If it helps: https://www.7cups.com/

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#112

Post by bowsamic »

simpletone wrote: post #82
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…

> reviewing old entries provides a feeling of history that makes life feel soooo long and so rich. This doesn't sound right at all. For me, and I suspect for most people, it has the opposite effect. It makes life feel short, fleeting and mundane. Looking back to 2014, I can't believe how quickly the past 10 years has gone. Heck just looking back 4 years, the pandemic years seems to have flown by. It's like a distant…

> Heck just looking back 4 years, the pandemic years seems to have flown by. It's like a distant memory now.

I'm confused, does it feel recent or very long ago? This seems to contradict your previous sentence. If 10 years has gone past quickly, how could the pandemic feel like a distant memory? In that case it should feel like yesterday

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#113

Post by dougmwne »

smokel wrote: post #103
dougmwne wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. But I disagree that settled is natural. Humans evolved in nomadic tribes that followed the herds. Stability is a social technology that was developed alongside agriculture. Stability feels unnatural to me and I get the itch after too many months in one place. My two bases are near family and I have developed friendships with other traveling people. I’ll meet up this weekend in Miami with a Swede that I…

I think this argument is a bit of a stretch. Nomadic tribes did not travel by plane, and they certainly did not have friends in strange places.

Fair enough! The tribe has changed for sure and so have the antelope.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#114

Post by overtomanu »

fufufu123 wrote: post #94
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…

You're apparently in a good place so looking back is your path to your joyful present. I'm in a bad place so looking back is my seeing back when I was still hopeful for my various life goals. I'd meet someone and have someone to share my life with, do activities with, travel with, raise kids with, etc. I never met that person and now at 60+ that's nearly impossible so looking back hurts. It hurts a-lot. Seeing the op…

Maybe you are better off than people in bad marriage's.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#115

Post by RaoulP »

stephen_g wrote: post #63
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 don’t have the motivation to journal, but I do get a fair bit of this kind of feeling scrolling back through my camera roll. I just take quick photos of all sorts of random stuff that happens or places I go, and it’s amazing the rush of memories that come back looking over them.

This! For all my lack of journaling consistency, my habit of taking these kind of quick photos of anything noteworthy has given me lots of joy when looking back - although I do feel it can be slightly neurotic “in the moment”.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#116

Post by nuancebydefault »

fufufu123 wrote: post #94
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…

You're apparently in a good place so looking back is your path to your joyful present. I'm in a bad place so looking back is my seeing back when I was still hopeful for my various life goals. I'd meet someone and have someone to share my life with, do activities with, travel with, raise kids with, etc. I never met that person and now at 60+ that's nearly impossible so looking back hurts. It hurts a-lot. Seeing the op…

Sorry to hear that things did not turn out as expected for such a long time.

If I may provide a suggestion... search for a serious website that is about dating (not tinder or something the like) in your area and connect to people and try to date (meet in person for at least an hour or so) at least one person once a week. Don't spend too much effort in people who just want to stick to online conversations or fooling around, just move on. If at the meetup there's no click, you have a good evening or at least you built up experience in dating.

You will need to get probably seriously out of your comfort zone but it becomes easier each time! Practice makes perfect!

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#117

Post by overtomanu »

bowsamic wrote: post #112
simpletone wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reviewing old entries provides a feeling of history that makes life feel soooo long and so rich. This doesn't sound right at all. For me, and I suspect for most people, it has the opposite effect. It makes life feel short, fleeting and mundane. Looking back to 2014, I can't believe how quickly the past 10 years has gone. Heck just looking back 4 years, the pandemic years seems to have flown by. It's like a distant…

> Heck just looking back 4 years, the pandemic years seems to have flown by. It's like a distant memory now. I'm confused, does it feel recent or very long ago? This seems to contradict your previous sentence. If 10 years has gone past quickly, how could the pandemic feel like a distant memory? In that case it should feel like yesterday

I think he has forgotten most of the memories related to pandemic, so it feels like distant memory, only bits and pieces left.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#118

Post by larve »

One thing I love about the speedup of time is that picking a compounding habit (say, doing something for 10 minutes each day) feels like having an almost instant pay-off.

"Oh wow 3 years already passed" -> "Oh wow I got pretty good at this thing I picked up just yesterday"

I picked up biking during the pandemic, and 3 years later I have legs of steel, 10k miles under my belt, and people know me as "the bike guy", when I think of myself as "ok this biking thing is kind of fun".

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#119

Post by bowsamic »

overtomanu wrote: post #117
bowsamic wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Heck just looking back 4 years, the pandemic years seems to have flown by. It's like a distant memory now. I'm confused, does it feel recent or very long ago? This seems to contradict your previous sentence. If 10 years has gone past quickly, how could the pandemic feel like a distant memory? In that case it should feel like yesterday

I think he has forgotten most of the memories related to pandemic, so it feels like distant memory, only bits and pieces left.

Okay but again that makes it sound like it feels very long ago, not recent

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#120

Post by dakial1 »

stared wrote: post #6

There is already a body of research on the perception of time as a function of age, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_perception#Changes_with_a... . It stems from a few things, and novelty is only one factor. (Also, it is not only that the world begins (to us) as full of novelty, but also most people gradually transition from exploration to exploitation.) In addition to remembering previous events, there is also…

Yes, and one thing you can do is doing something/everything different everyday, but the downside of this is that you'll get fatigue out of keeping your brain on alert all the time.

I observed this with people traveling, I used to call travel cognitive impairment, as usually functional human beings (like my close relatives) suddenly get very lost and helpless during travel (specially at airports).

I then realized that this was because this was a unusual experience for them (once every year) and this would overload them with things out of their routing (even if they traveled before). That didnt happen to me (yet) because I was traveling a lot for work, so this was a routine for my brain.

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