When Time Speeds Up & Slows Down

It always happens at work with an hour to go and I just want to go home. Time slows down to a snails pace. I glance at the clock and it shows the big hand just past the hour and I think to myself, ‘c’mon, c’mon, tick faster!’ I look away from the clock and get back to work for what seems like a half an hour, only to glance at the clock and it has only been two minutes.

That’s just one scenario. There are times when I am quite thoroughly enjoying myself and want the day to last forever. I glance at the clock and it’s still morning, a little after eleven. The next thing I know it’s three o’clock in the afternoon. Holy crap! The sun will be setting in a couple of hours (FYI, the sun sets early in Brisbane). As much as I try to slow the day down and immerse myself in the moment, …it’s time for bed.

It’s unfair. Time is either for me or against me. I have no control over it. Like right now as I write this, it is 3:30 in the afternoon, and it seems just a second ago I was having breakfast at my favorite diner earlier this morning. Even when I eat and have the last bite, and try to savor every last scrumptious morsel, my food is gone in no time! I’m not a fast eater and I have people who will attest to this.

Life, at the best of times, moves too quick. In the worst of times it can drag on forever. It wasn’t long ago that I was riding my bike around my old neighborhood. Now I grunt in relief as I plop myself down in my chair with my laptop and quietly fall asleep while typing, only to wake up late and crawl into my bed. I look forward to sleeping, it’s where I don’t have to think about time only to wake up and see that it is morning already. Where the hell did the night time go?!

I have watched many videos on YouTube about ‘time.’ Dr. Brian Greene, a theoretical physicist, explaining it along with Einstein’s theory of relativity. It is easy to understand and I would suggest anyone to watch it. “The Science of Time” is a short version; I like the longer version “The Fabric Of The Cosmos The Illusion Of Time.” That’s the version that really explains it thoroughly.

My daughters phone and my phone are both set to Greenwich time, though her clock on her phone is slower than mine. I thought that with the technology that we use today, our phones for example, that they would be synchronous. I admit that her phone is an Apple product and is inferior to my Android, but our clocks should match. We are all connected to the same satellites floating around in the heavens above.

Maybe her clock on her phone is slower because she is younger. I’m getting older and approaching the end of my time, and there must be a law of physics that can explain it. Is my time gaining speed?

I have been in car accidents where time slows down incredibly as I watch, rather observe, the cars collide into each other. It’s in this moment of time that I recall my mind thinking numerous thoughts while focusing/experiencing on the events of the collision. Then, afterwards, everything automatically returns to a standard time. It’s bizarre.

There are times I have been able to predict what will happen before it happens, based on my observations of objects in my current time, and it plays out exactly as I saw it happen in my mind. These are the times I have experienced time slowing down, though it really isn’t slowing down at all. It’s a paradox of great proportions that happens in an instant.

I play a game of sorts with my family and colleagues where I will intervene the conversation and ask them what the topic was when we first started the conversation. I’m sure that it is a mental experiment that psychologist have studied and it has to do with recall. But how accurate is recall over an extended amount of time? Like when I have memories of my childhood, how accurate are they? It’s been said that memories aren’t accurate and that we embellish our stories.

I like looking at photographs from long ago. I imagine the people in them living their lives much like I do, and now they are gone from history. I may not know their names but I see the expressions on their faces and think how alive they were in the moment the photo was being taken. It really gives me perspective about my own life and knowing that someday I too will be gone and only a photo of me here and there will remind people that I was live once on this planet.

I’ve read where some people think time doesn’t exist at all. I’ve read where some scientist can’t really explain the concept of time! I get the impression that most people think of it as linear, the way the diagrams in our history books showed a line marking all the dates from past to present. Then there is the concept/theory of everything that ever happened in existence is happening at this very moment. I guess that we are presently at the moment where our lives are taking place among every other persons lives?

At times (no pun intended) my thinking of time is indescribable. It just is, …and isn’t. I know no other time except for the present time, as in this very moment. The future and past do not even exist. I can imagine the future and remember certain things about the past, but I only know and experience this exact moment.

Does my watch even measure time correctly? It’s just a tool that will succumb to time and vanish, never to exist again. Like me. I am just a spec in the grander scheme of time. Blink and you might miss me. My siblings live in the states and I have no inkling about how they spend their time. I think about them often and wonder what they are doing at that exact moment. When I video conference with them I see how they have aged and they too see how I have aged. I think that is the only discerning aspect of time passing between us.

As I’ve said before in prior articles, I hope that my time goes on beyond my death. I still want to be present. I guess only time will tell.

I guess that in the end we should use the time that we have wisely.