"Time flies when you're having fun"
November 26th 2008 08:03
I think it's interesting how true this saying is. Time really does fly when you're having fun - in fact, it's one of the defining aspects of fun. If time isn't going fast for you while you're doing something, then it's hard to imagine that you're having fun doing it. It's the inverse of the saying "a watched pot never boils" - where by paying close attention to the waiting process, time slows down almost to a standstill.
This saying is surely not to be taken literally, as if it is a physical entity with a varying speed. What does it mean, then, for time to go fast? I'm very curious about this question because I have a feeling it will tell us something interesting or important about human psychology. We think of time as something neutral and external which passes without our intervention. We measure it by our clocks and by the sun rising and setting, but time is not the measurement. If the sun came started to rise and set faster than normal, we wouldn't say that time is moving faster, and the same with our clocks. Really, time is measured most importantly in relation to our bodies and our experiences(after all, as Nietzsche said, "there is no absolute measure of anything"). The growing, ageing and decaying of the body is the first and biggest indicator of time as a straight line, our first notion of a beginning and an end. Secondly, our experiences are equally important - if someone's body grew and aged quicker than normal, we wouldn't say time has sped up (although we might say that it has sped up for them). The reason for this is that they haven't had x amount of time to use their body. They haven't had the length of experiences that would normally be associated with the normal span of a life. If I am right, then, we could be stuck with a circular definition of time. Experiences, such as watching a pot boil, are measured by their length of time, but time is measured by length of experience (maybe that is what this new book, The Time Paradox is about - I don't know, I haven't read it).
I am still curious what is real - the slowness of time, or the fastness. When I sit and meditate, and time goes excruciatingly slowly - is that the real speed of time? Or is it more "real" to be caught up in the moment and to not even think about time? Certainly the latter is more fun (as indicated by the widespread popularity of alcohol), but many spiritual gurus might say that there is a profound peace in the former once one is trained to feel it. This is only what they might say though - I find it hard to imagine that being highly aware of one's boredom is a higher state to be in. I used to get really bored at work; I hated going to work, and I went around looking for new jobs to ease the anxiety that the boredom of my job was seemingly causing. I find that now, though, I've got into the groove of work and actually find that time goes fairly fast. The anxiety is gone. Surely this is a good thing?
I think that there are two states in at two ends of a spectrum: one is anxiety, the other is happiness, being "on the zone". One involves a resistance to the moment, the other involves a surrender to it. These are not consciously willed - sometimes it is very hard to surrender, to get "in the zone". In fact it is impossible to get in the zone through conscious willing. I think this is the big mistake in self-help and cognitive psychology - they attempt to put everything at the mercy of the conscious mind, which unfortunately is only very weak. NLP tries to go deeper, but still to me is trying to force the hand of good energy. You can't create good energy, all you can do is smell it out, follow it, and just go along with it. When you do that, time just seems to fly.
This saying is surely not to be taken literally, as if it is a physical entity with a varying speed. What does it mean, then, for time to go fast? I'm very curious about this question because I have a feeling it will tell us something interesting or important about human psychology. We think of time as something neutral and external which passes without our intervention. We measure it by our clocks and by the sun rising and setting, but time is not the measurement. If the sun came started to rise and set faster than normal, we wouldn't say that time is moving faster, and the same with our clocks. Really, time is measured most importantly in relation to our bodies and our experiences(after all, as Nietzsche said, "there is no absolute measure of anything"). The growing, ageing and decaying of the body is the first and biggest indicator of time as a straight line, our first notion of a beginning and an end. Secondly, our experiences are equally important - if someone's body grew and aged quicker than normal, we wouldn't say time has sped up (although we might say that it has sped up for them). The reason for this is that they haven't had x amount of time to use their body. They haven't had the length of experiences that would normally be associated with the normal span of a life. If I am right, then, we could be stuck with a circular definition of time. Experiences, such as watching a pot boil, are measured by their length of time, but time is measured by length of experience (maybe that is what this new book, The Time Paradox is about - I don't know, I haven't read it).
I am still curious what is real - the slowness of time, or the fastness. When I sit and meditate, and time goes excruciatingly slowly - is that the real speed of time? Or is it more "real" to be caught up in the moment and to not even think about time? Certainly the latter is more fun (as indicated by the widespread popularity of alcohol), but many spiritual gurus might say that there is a profound peace in the former once one is trained to feel it. This is only what they might say though - I find it hard to imagine that being highly aware of one's boredom is a higher state to be in. I used to get really bored at work; I hated going to work, and I went around looking for new jobs to ease the anxiety that the boredom of my job was seemingly causing. I find that now, though, I've got into the groove of work and actually find that time goes fairly fast. The anxiety is gone. Surely this is a good thing?
I think that there are two states in at two ends of a spectrum: one is anxiety, the other is happiness, being "on the zone". One involves a resistance to the moment, the other involves a surrender to it. These are not consciously willed - sometimes it is very hard to surrender, to get "in the zone". In fact it is impossible to get in the zone through conscious willing. I think this is the big mistake in self-help and cognitive psychology - they attempt to put everything at the mercy of the conscious mind, which unfortunately is only very weak. NLP tries to go deeper, but still to me is trying to force the hand of good energy. You can't create good energy, all you can do is smell it out, follow it, and just go along with it. When you do that, time just seems to fly.
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