John Coyle argues that time feels fast because our brains don't measure it like a clock. Novel, intense moments expand time; routine contracts it. Ninety-eight percent of adults feel life accelerating, but you can slow it down by seeking meaningful experiences, love, loss, and adventure instead of staying comfortable.
Chapters
There is no such thing as chronological time. There is no such thing as chronological time. How long did summers last as a kid? Splashing into the lake, riding bikes across busy streets, crushes, broken hearts, bruises, and dirty knees. We all know summer lasted forever as a kid. Everything was new, we really lived everything we did. And now, how long do they last in this world so mundane? I don't know about you, but I ache to live endless summers again. This thing here, it's a lie. We've been lied to, sidetracked, distracted, manipulated. This ticking, this talking, this terrible terminal tracking of the ticking of time teaching us trivial untruths. It taught us that each second is exactly the same, that each minute, each hour, each day progresses in a linear way, and that each is the same distance from the last. That these ticks and these tocks are an accurate measure of our past. This thing here is quite different than this thing here. As it turns out, this thing doesn't have one of these, or more accurately, it has a whole bunch of these Time in our brains doesn't tick-tock, tick-tock with equal density. Time in our brains is dependent on our experiences and their relative intensity. But wait, time is like a river, right? Sure, time is like a river, all right, but not this kind of river. No, time is a river that ebbs and flows from trickles to rapids, waterfalls and pools. They bend, they bow, they curve, they dry up. In the brain, it is the same game. The river of time is to blame. The fact is, we don't experience time always the same. Neuroscientists tell us that the experience of time is relative, and that the drivers behind its flexibility are by their nature cognitive. Kahneman, he calls it thinking fast and slow. Csikszentmihalyi, he calls it flow. Regardless, it is a paradox we all know that when time accelerates in the present, It expands in retro. Physics teaches us the theory of relativity. In a massive gravitational pull, there's a change in activity. And as you accelerate towards the speed of light, there's an event horizon where you lose all sight. Time inside stops relative to the outside world. Under the massive forces and compression, even time itself is swirled. It's a slinky on a staircase, a complex blue fractal. It's a Copernican roller coaster. String theory in a cat's cradle. It is bellows and helixes and event horizons at the ends. Time stops when it speeds up. It decelerates when it bends. What about your life? Is time speeding up or slowing down? 98% of adults feel that life is accelerating. I don't know about you, but that makes me frown. How is that okay? Who ordered the code red? And who let Tom Cruise in this monologue? He's too short, just like your life. You want the truth? You can't handle the truth. Here's your code red. Here's the truth: experiential time, absent aggressive action to reverse it, will keep speeding up. So go ahead, avoid the highs and lows of life, and here's what you're going to get: each September will come faster, leaves piled at your feet, And no one, no one will warm you or sing you to sleep. Want to speed through life with nothing to remember? Here's how to reap another pale September. Watch lots of TV, sit on the couch, eat the same foods, develop a pouch, meet no new friends, become a stay-at-home grouch, do the same damn thing every single day, walk with a slouch. Your armchair, the gauze of Advil and air conditioning, your staid routines and complacent pace— these things are the warp drive to temporal hyperspace. You think you are half done with life, or even less? Wrong! Only 10% of your experiential time is left for you to save. You have one foot, a torso, two hands, and a watch in the grave. Be safe, stick with your routine, be comfortable, live the dream, and die in a few temporal seconds. Good night, you're dead. End of scene. آسف بکوش نونو خبزے It's no surrender. It is time. It is time to either get busy dying or get busy really living. It is time to get dirty, to get sick, to burn out and recover, to fall in love, to have a broken heart, to fall apart and then get back up again. It is time to eat a Moruga scorpion pepper without milk. It is time to get back out there, get back in there, time to get off the hedonic treadmill, time to unclimb the corporate ladder. I want to climb the ladder of my internal clock. I want to clock the ladder of my internal climb. I want to slow the hands of Father Time and time the slow hands of my fatherhood. I want to kiss my young child's forehead and wake to find her still a child. I want to love the loves of my life and live the life that I love. I want to sleep the dreams of heroes and be the hero of my dreams. I accept that this kind of life may mean suffering for me. I will choose this suffering rather Then let it choose me. It is time. It is time to create moments of such gravity that Meaning supersedes all. It is time to create event horizons where the clock ceases to exist at all. For the people we truly love, this one sacred gift we can give, the gift back of time. It is time to really live.
