How long do you want to feel you've lived?
How I think about time, its passage and space for variety
I’ve long been obsessed with time and it’s passage. How our relationship with it changes as we age and what to do. I’m not interested in taking over the top actions to prolong1 my natural life but am keen to optimize my perception of its fullness.
In 2015 Maximilian Kiener published a dynamic web page2 based on on Paul Janet’s 1877 theory of log time visually framing why time feels like it accelerates as we age. In short, as we age a year becomes a smaller fraction of our lives up until that point. There are newer theories3 on this subject related to differences in how we process visual information.
My take is this:
We are adapted to recognize patterns and predict what comes next.
Our attention is selective and efficient4 — we discard what is not relevant.
We make updates based on what is new, surprising or emotionally charged.
The more predictable our days become the shorter they feel.
Remember: Matter. How tiny your share of it. Time. How brief and fleeting your allotment of it. Fate. How small a role you play in it. — V.24
The subjective experience of time, then, is something to be controlled. We’ve known this since we were young. New experiences happened as a matter of firsts. Variety a given.
On adaptation in our roles
There’s a saying in Tech and business that some have 10 years of experience and others have 1 year of experience 10 times. My observation is that most when entering a new role or job do not actively project how long they intend to spend in it (often this is a two-way street) and what you’ll get out of it. Normally the rose colored view is forever — which these days, actually averages out to about 18 months.
As a thought experiment, what if you did? Or better yet could actually know a priori.
Would it change how you spent your time, what you focused on?
What variety you sought?
Could you be more present and if so, how?
Would you take more risk and create larger impact?
I know I would.
As Steve Jobs famously put it in his 2005 Stanford commencement speech:
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
On adaptation in our broader lives
One of the reasons I write is because it helps me linger. If writing is thinking, lingering then comes naturally. I’ve talked about writing in a previous Substack and think you and I should do it more.
Physically slowing down the clocks of our lives can be ruled out. The clock ticks at the same rate day after day, year after year.
Sometimes external events engender adaptation. COVID is a good example. I remember asking myself, often out-loud, “What is time?” during COVID. Many of our memories after now spliced — pre and post that period. It seems harder to remember when things happened pre-COVID. We all received massive updates and adjustments due to the collective emotional trauma of the pandemic.
So what else can be done?
Keep a journal: Reflecting on each day helps to reinforce memories. Beyond that it can serve as a rich store of your varied thoughts and feelings. The next time you ponder what you did last June, you’ll have an answer.
Seek variety: If routine leads to subjective time shortening — mix it up. Travel to a new place. Go on a walk somewhere different. Try a restaurant in another part of town. Reach out to an old friend or parents. Create firsts intentionally. Add spice.
Do linger: We’re battered with constant stimuli. Endless scrolling warps our sense of time and it’s passage. Sit down and “smell the roses”. Do something that you can be absolutely present in. Or nothing at all.
Final Thoughts
In his essay Life is Short, Paul Graham says:
If life is short, we should expect its shortness to take us by surprise. And that is just what tends to happen. You take things for granted, and then they're gone. You think you can always write that book, or climb that mountain, or whatever, and then you realize the window has closed.
The good news: You are not late5. You can behave differently. The subjective experience of life can be adjusted even in the certainty of it’s finite physical experience. What are you waiting for? Clinch it.
Bryan Johnson is the IRL manifestation of Silicon Valley’s Blood Boy Episode
Digital Projects Time — Maximilian Kiener
It’s also why we can’t see the gorilla
One of my favorite essays on the topic. The context, here, is starting businesses.