I’m always doubly and triply astonished at the manic pace of time for me these days. There’s simply no hint of moderation or even sad but useless regret–it’s just gone without a whisper, without a trace of its former glory or presence. Time just isn’t what it used to be. Thankfully, I still have more clip-on wings for the clock. They don’t last forever, but most of us are born with a good supply in the stock closet, and whenever one pair of feathery dusters wears out, we just pin the new ones on. We manage for a few years to find the best and brilliant wings, the ones with the brightest plumage, but we begin to realize the simple fact that after a while the dull, utilitarian ones are all we have left in the closet. They serve their purpose admirably, and in fact are more swift than their glamorized brethren. But they don’t make the splash like the ones that came before.
What is it about time that gets people to thinking? According to most physicists, time isn’t even really that great of a concept because it is only the flat representation of what is really a fully-featured dimension, with its own characteristics and qualities as yet unseen and unmeasured by humankind. We know it isn’t constant. Linear chronomic motion begins to slow in close proximity with an object of massive gravitational pull. It also slows the faster you go. But that’s not really what counts, is it? Because it’s our perception of time that is really at stake. And our perception is, as it happens, highly limiting.
We can’t, for example, see beyond the next bend in the river, so to speak. Think of time like a flowing body of water, almost more like a lake than a river, but with bends and bows, and it goes on and on and on, stretching beyond any point of comprehension. And imagine that we are in a boat on this wide, vast, endlessly curving river. This boat permits us to dangle our feet over and into the stream, and we can see ahead and behind…but only so far. Our sight is limited, and this river, as wide as it is, bends to the point of excruciation. Beyond the bend or our occular limits is the unknown future or the hidden past, long gone and irretrievable except in limited scope.
Why is our perception of time so different from what actually exists? Most people say that as the years advance they feel the days slipping by with increasing momentum, the years descending like a marble dropped upon a step. As gravity pulls us forward through time, we perceive an increase in our acceleration. And time seems so much faster then, our days shorter, our years swifter.