Time is marked by experiences, not by numbers, imagined and randomly assigned. Time certainly does not exist in the sense that it is measured by seconds and hours and divides evenly all experience. Times moves slowly in childhood because every experience is new and purely felt; it moves faster as we grow older and find that we need to engage in routine to ‘survive’, to make money, fit in, etc. Time “flies” when we choose to partake in the same routine everyday, a conformity that is necessary to perfect, through repetition, certain actions that benefit us in a tangible way, i.e. we become ‘good’ at something doing it so often, and being good can translate to professional success, etc, which translates to financial success and thus comfort, stability, etc. The traveler, on the other hand and for example, experiences wholly new situations every single moment - thus that backpacking trip which lasted 3 months of counted time seems an eternity, as here time is measured by new experiences. When one repeats the same experience many times over a long ‘measured’ span, it seems short because it is in actuality measured - or felt - in terms of the experiences themselves, of which there were few. Yes, we must sacrifice ‘improvement’ or ‘perfection’ of a certain experience/activity to ‘slow time’, and engaging in wholly new experiences is completely uncomfortable (comparable inversely to its novelty) - a feeling we are all familiar with in its ‘time-slowing’ ability. Of course there must be a balance maintained in both these extremes, as with everything; new experiences that make a ‘long’ life must essentially be balanced with a repetition that maintains survival. The balance? Travel every day, regardless of what you need to do on a given day. Use your little moments to do something completely new, within the framework of following whatever routine you may have adapted to ‘survive’.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 06:54:35 +0000
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