You remember when you were a kid how time seemed to drag on forever? Long, hot summers filled with nothing to do but run wild with no shoes on. Miserable drawn out semesters at school after your boyfriend dropped you and then suddenly declared his love for your best friend. Waiting an eternity for Christmas every year.
Now that I'm technically an adult, time seems to be flying by at such a fast rate I seem to have stepped out of a time machine. Where the hell did this morning go? Or what about this year? For that matter, what the hell happened to my friends' babies and when did they suddenly become college students?
I've been in my TT gig for two years now and I seem to have achieved nothing. I feel like I'm moving in slow motion with my research and have hit nothing but obstacles and quick sand. Yet two years has gone by. WTF? And now my startup piggy bank is almost shrivelled up and gone and we still have no external funding to show for it.
Sigh.
And I always thought time travel was supposed to be cool.*
* Well, except for that time when Rod Taylor ended up in that weird future where everyone was beautiful but apathetic and emotionally dead and they all got eaten by the Morlocks. That would not be very cool.
My labmate and I were discussing this problem just the other day. We're convinced that the older you get, the less time you have--not in the lifelong sense (though that's obviously true too) but in the "there must be less time in the day than there was 5 years ago" sense.
Unfortunately, the days are actually getting longer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_acceleration
Someone once explained this to me as our perception of time is related to how much time we've experienced. So, as a kid, a year is a significant fraction of your life and seems to drag on forever. As adults, that same measure of time seems like less because it represents a smaller proportion of our experience with time. I can't remember if this conversation happened while stoned or not.
In any case, it doesn't help the fact that time is escaping too quickly to get everything done that need to be completed for things like papers, grants and teaching.
I remember those long, endless summers with fondness, looked forward to them every year, and finally noticed they were getting incrementally shorter as I got older. Time has speeded up yearly now for a long time, except for a brief return to stretched out time in the 90's. Now, I think time has finally reached some kind of steady state sometime during the last 5 years, but am really not sure anymore.
Well, except for that time when Rod Taylor ended up in that weird future where everyone was beautiful but apathetic and emotionally dead and they all got eaten by the Morlocks.
I sometimes wonder if that's where we're at now. There's a couple of Morlocks in my department...
Do we work in the same department?
Yeah but in "The time machine", H. G. Wells eventually falls in love with one of the "apathetic and emotionally dead" (she better have had some good unmentionable qualities...) and eventually returns to the future to fight 'em bad bad Morlocks... This theme has of course been revisited, oh, I don't know, maybe a million times thereafter ("Dances with Wolves", "Avatar", the 300 remakes of "The time machine" come to mind...)
PLS - I've heard the same thing as well. It's an interesting idea.
I find that time is both slow and fast. The hours and days can go by reeeaaalllyyy slowly, but the weeks, months, and years go by way to quickly. How can that happen?!
I find that time goes inproportional to what I need. When I don't need time (sad or not having specific to do or waiting for things at a specific time)- it drags and looooooooooong empty hours. Whereas those times when I have tonnes to do and need it, the day is over in a heart beat. Not to mention weeks and months.
I realised when I read this that I really long for one of those "real summers" - imagine, more than 2 months off with nothing "have to do". That would be awesome!! (and not because of being unemployed - just "off for vacation")
I guess Christmas is around the corner already, after all, it's less than 3 months left!
"There’s a couple of Morlocks in my department…"
now isnt that the case in every department? and it are always "the others"!
which brings me to the next thing... there are also always some people that are working in your dept, but somehow are never/barely there.... when do they work?!
Do I ever hear you. And how is it almost time to pick up my daughter from daycare?
"Whereas those times when I have tonnes to do and need it, the day is over in a heart beat. "
In these situations, merely checking the time extra-frequently seems to slow it down to a more manageable speed, I have no idea why.
As far as the longer time units, I wonder if it's partly because we tend to routinize our lives as we get older (this could relate to why un-scheduled summers seem longer). When I took a 180-degree in mid-life and started studying nature and science and now grad school, time seemed to slow down considerably. And when I think back to the beginning of this period of dramatic change, only 8 years ago or so, it seems like a lifetime ago. I have hazy memories of people and institutions I've lost touch with, naive ideas I had at that time about the biological world, the crazy part-time jobs that got me through the undergrad classes, etc.
Unfortunately, as I am now over halfway through this phd program and the pressure is on to get results and publish, not to mention hanging with the same people in the same place for 3+ years, time is speeding up again and the months are starting to fly by!
The more I have to do, the less time I have to do it, and the quicker time passes by. These days I feel like I'm perpetually behind...and I've given up trying to get everything done.
"Someone once explained this to me as our perception of time is related to how much time we’ve experienced. So, as a kid, a year is a significant fraction of your life and seems to drag on forever. "
The idea that the subjective midpoint of life is before 20 would be highly depressing!!
I couldn't have said it better myself. I have been a post-doc for almost two years and it seems like time has flown by at an insane pace. I've managed to get some things accomplished, like getting independent funding, but now that I have progress reports looming, it seems like time is going faster than ever, especially this last month during which I've been stuck in a cloning hell.
Good! Time is always inversely proportional top human necessities.
Depressing times are marked by people's attitude and activities.