AT THE


SPEED


OF TIME









Are there mental "positions" for the passage of time? Do certain mindsets affect our perception of the passage of time?

It's commonly expressed that the time goes by quickly. But I've noticed that the older a person gets, the more this is expressed. Back 50 years ago, I can't remember thinking about time in this way. It was never "suddenly" November, and what happened to July?

That got me asking if there were certain circumstances that seemed to foster our feelings about the passage of time.

If we are focused in the future, don't things seem to take forever? That's how Youth is lived, mostly. In the future. "When's the next Whatever" "Are we there yet?" I remember hearing about how slow summer seemed to drag on until school started. Everyone wasn't saying that, but it was said. My guess is that it was said by those who wanted to get back with all their school chums. Focused in the future.

I'm not focused in the future the way I used to be. Maybe that's true for a lot of older folks. Doesn't aging narrow one's focus? Most all the youthful diversions are gone, laid aside. Ideas of what is important change. More focus is given to the present. Well, OK. Trips down Memory Lane with the family Album are in there, but we're not talking about that being the total focus of a healthy, active mind. Couch potatoes need not apply.

Now the question arises. If one is focused in the future, time will seem to slow. If one is focused in the present, time will seem to speed up. What happens to time if one's primary focus is the past?

There's only one option left. Time can "be" three things. Fast, slow or stopped. Does time seem to stop for a person focused in the past. Maybe even temporarily for those trips down memory lane?

And how does "time stand still" when extreme peril looms? At about age nine or ten, I once tripped at the top of a fifteen step stairway. As I floated to the bottom, time went into slow motion. That's why I used the word "floated." I should have hurtling down those stairs. In fact, as I remember, I wasn't hurt at all. The vivid image of me floating down those stairs is still with me over 65 years later.






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