Out of Time

Recently, a friend of mine gave me a 4-part documentary series on the topic of time. It was produced by the BBC and has Dr. Michio Kaku:

Theoretical Physicist - Dr. Michio Kaku is the co-creator of string field theory, a branch of string theory. He received a B.S. (summa cum laude) from Harvard University in 1968 where he came first in his physics class. He went on to the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley and received a Ph.D. in 1972. In 1973, he held a lectureship at Princeton University.

Professor of Physics — He holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York, where he has taught for over 25 years. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, as well as New York University (NYU).

I've only watched the first two episodes, and I think the series is fantastic. There have been so many interesting experiements performed to help explain what is time, that it has me thinking a lot these days about time and aging. One of the many interesting things they discussed was the perception of time as we age. Old people move slower and notice how the world is speeding up around them. One of the experiments they performed was asking pedestrians in New York City to count to a minute. Repeatedly, the younger people were under a minute and the older ones were always over.

I teach children and they're perceptions of time are different from mine. They can spend multiple minutes engaged with something extremely mundane. Remember when we were young? Getting older seemed so far away. Days seemed to last much longer than 24 hours. And then as we get older, we feel time carrying us forward faster and faster.

One of the explanations for this phenomena is that when we have new, unique experiences our brains are forced to be on alert taking in all the new information. The moment is in appreciation and our sense of time is slowed a bit. Over time, experiences and objects begin to have the mark of the mundane and so we stop interacting with the world in such an engaged fashion. Essentially, we get lost into our heads.

I've been giving this so much thought recently. My 20s have been filled with new, unique experiences. From traveling around the world for so many years, I feel that my life has been extremely rich with these experiences that I almost feel out of time with parts of the world; in particular, with the people and place of my birth and youth - America. I think this comparison is necessary because I interact with Americans most. This interaction includes my parents, sister, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, etc. My sense of time has almost been slowed by the rate of new experiences. To put it more poetically, my inner dance has become out of pace with the march of the world.

Time slows for those who dare to be different. It can be done so simply. Take new ways home from work, go eat in restaurants you have never tried. Plan to make a day with no plan and just see what happens. Change something in your home. Go for a walk down a street you've never been.

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears the beat of a different drummer."
-Henry David Thoreau