To make time go more slowly, to avoid the sensation that life is simply slipping by, it’s important to do new things all the time. (Unless, of course, you’re interested in not being engaged and getting through this whole experience as quickly as possible.)
I’ve written in the past about The User Illusion, which remains a big favorite of mine. The author carefully explains how consciousness is created synthetically – always about half a second behind – while leaving us with the feeling that we are in charge. Motions are initiated before we know it, and then the whole experience is stitched together to give us the sensation that we decided to move. All of this makes for a much smoother experience. Our brains give us for active, conscious use much less information than they take in – serving up about 16-50 bits per second, while absorbing 11 million bits per second.
But all this pattern-making can be too smooth – in the same job, with the same commute, with the same tasks and rewards, the mind can sum up a year by saying to itself “That year went by so much more quickly than sixth grade did.” Or, as someone joked to me this afternoon, “After 50 it’s breakfast every 15 minutes.”
So it’s good to force the addition of a few more bits, a few jolts in the road, a few more new experiences. Ot at least that’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.
Whoever “I” is.