Saturday 26 July 2008

Making Time

I have just finished reading Making Time by Steve Taylor (on My Shelfari) - Why time seems to pass at different speeds and how to control it. After a few pages in which I could relate to what he was describing - the internal chatter and other stuff about how time can expand in states of maximum concentration, but it shortens in states of absorption - he lost me completely. Not that I could not follow what he was saying, I just simply have a different experience on the matter. For me a day can be long while living it and short looking back. And it is not due to the amount of experiences and exposure to the new, but to change. Time feels longer for me when the before and after an experience are different, i.e. after I have changed in some respect. But then again I've never suffered at the thought of time passing too fast, for me it passes too slow. Taylor says that in states of mindfulness, i.e., living and experiencing and concentrating on the present, time seems longer or we might transcend it altogether. He says that children live in the now. But so do I, I am aware of the clouds and the trees and buildings, sounds, all of that, micro and macro worlds to discover. I'm surprised to hear that other people don't. It's sad. But in the now there always seems to be something bugging me, I might be thirsty or tired or cold or carrying a heavy bag. So the future is still a better place. If I need more time I think of reincarnation. What a shame that we don't seem to learn from one life to the next. What a shame that what we identify with the I (or ego in the sense of the I) is our personality, which is what we shall leave behind. Time has not passed fast for me, but I still don't know how I got here.

1 comment:

sage said...

Making time is always better than doing time (american slang for a prison term)... :)

When I was young, I'd contemplate how things get faster as our "half-life" gets longer--ie, would 3 years to a six year old seem the same distance as 30 years to a 60 year old... I don't think of it anymore, it's too frightening as I get older :)