Fast Time and the Aging Mind

“I am happy to tell you that the apparent velocity of time is a big fat cognitive illusion and happy to say there may be a way to slow the velocity of our later lives.” Time is one of my favorite things to contemplate. There's this book – and, yes, I know it could have been written better, but the central concept I find irresistibly intriguing – Time and Again, by Jack Finney. The main character travels not via a time machine, but through the power of his mind. Part of that is by erasing the “markers” that connect him to a specific point in time from his mind.

That bears a relationship to why time seems to go by so much faster for many of us. I'd assumed it has something to do with getting older. After all, I remember when summers were so endlessly long that I actually waited with longing for school to start again. Now, they seem to pass in the blink of an eye. However, my kids started saying the same thing, talking about how time here seems to move so much faster than where we were. They came to conclusions similar to those in the article regarding why that may be.