Children and Helical Time

My family was not wealthy but I got the luck being born in the EU in a country where edu and Healthcare were basically free and you really cannot end up under a bridge unless extreme mental (and drugs issues that follow that) problems. My parents, even though we did not have much, always taught us to never follow orders unless you think they make sense and follow our own path. I guess that is why I mostly have no difference in vividness; I always did my own thing, that happens to be writing software so I got lucky and got rich by building stuff I thought was nice and needed. I still do that while also doing art (welding sculptures and writing). 2025 was not less vibrant than my childhood. Of course I am the most annoying employee; if you tell me 'have to', I will definitely never ever do it. So I never been an employee; guess that is the luxury you mentioned.

I have no clue how it would have turned out if I would have grown up in a country without a safety net. I hope the same as I never needed that net and will never need it, however I am not so sure; it makes taking risks very easy...

This was a both a nice, and extremely depressing, read.

It sounds like the author has had a good childhood and is a good parent to their kids. Wonderful.

But the whole article is appropriately summarized by their final sentences

> You recreate your memories in them. They recreate childishness in you. Life folds back on itself, but not quite the same. It loops, but continues. A helix. > > Life, then, is the creation of childhoods. You have yours, and then you get to create childhoods for others. The time is yours, and theirs

They have completely given up on their own life, and the possibility that they, too, could live in a child-like way, where they have their own wonder, joy etc.

Eg

> Children make you childlike. Skipping through the park as an adult man raises eyebrows (deservedly or not.) Skipping through the park as an adult man with your son or daughter skipping next to you on your arm is one of life’s greatest joys, both for you and for anyone who sees you.

Why do you care about people's eyebrows? Go skip, play, dance, be curious, be creative - whether just for the sake of it, or also in your "work".

Your kids need to see you actually living so that they, too, might be able to actually live once they've moved into adulthood.

> Your Christmas trees get smaller, your lights less ambitious. Some find all of these fun for their own sake, but if you are not the type of person who finds ritual appealing you will likely find yourself slowly disconnecting from holidays. You will find yourself asking what all the hustle bustle is for. > > Kids. That’s who it’s for. Of all the experiences that children renew, traditions are renewed the most. When you put up a Christmas tree, it’s for kids. When you decorate for Halloween, it’s for kids. All of these holidays are in essence a celebration of childhood, and children let you see them all for the first time again. If you remember the excitement of galumphing

Christmas, and other traditions, are NOT about trees and lights and presents. Thanksgiving is not about waiting to stampede a Walmart to buy crap. It's about genuine communion with family, friends, or - if you're particularly clued in - even strangers who don't have such traditions available to them.

And so on.

They talk about the joy of showing kids Saturn in a telescope. I won't argue with that. But that doesn't mean an adult can't have joy in discovering new things in the cosmos - be it through a career or hobby in telescopes, or exploring all parts of nature, from microbes to volcanoes. Whether as a hobby or a career.

This person is missing the point of everything.

We must do as nietzsche described and progress from a camel, to a lion, to a child again. Joseph Campbell - a wonderful interpreter and guide of all of these things - explains it all well, a quote of which is at this page https://centeroflighttulsa.org/three-transformations-spirit/

Maybe by realizing that this is a crazy idea?

Half of your life is childhood because you weighed subjective experiences differently when you had no knowledge or life experiences so you should change your life based on that situation where you were in Plato’s cave?

Actually fuck even this title is bad. If life is subjective, don’t ask how “we” should live. Subjectiveness means that’s a “you” question.

> We feel time differently over our lives. As a toddler, an afternoon feels like an eternity. In middle age, “no matter how I try, those years just flow by, like a broken down dam.” For a 5 year old, a year was a fifth of their life, and feels like it. For a 40 year old, it is just another year.

I think this explanation is true but incomplete. I believe it's also related to Critical Flicker Fusion Frequency [0], the way I see it, if an organism is smaller it has a higher frequency, it sees more image per second, therefore perception of time is slower. (E.g. a fly sees you moving really slowly). Maybe it's related to the processing time of images, with smaller brains insect can process more of them per second.

Maybe humans process more images as children, therefore see the time time going slower.

It's been a while I didn't think about this, maybe some studies have been made in the past years.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flicker_fusion_threshold

My kids go to a stem focused magnet school. I realize different cultures value different things but its depressing to me how many kids are pushed to dedicate their whole childhood to get into top Universities. We'd go to the beach and their friends couldn't come because they were doing extra APs or science fair or Math Olympics or similar. These kids got good grades but never went on a date, couldn't drive or go anywhere by themselves.