Life Is Short (2016)

Re:Life Is Short (2016) by Xcelerate on Saturday August 29, 2020 @12:04PM (#24317039)

I’ve noticed this independently and agree with it (at least for me personally). For some reason, the more fixed and typical my schedule, the slower time goes by in the short term but the quicker it goes by in the long-term. For example, with the pandemic, almost every day is exactly the same and they all feel excruciatingly slow. But when I sit back and think “it’s already almost September”, it seems like the months just flew by and I can’t really remember what I spent all those months doing.

I purposely try to mix up my days as much as I can because it seems to change my perception of time, but it’s been a bit hard to do that this year without really being able to go anywhere.

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Re:Life Is Short (2016) by bschne on Saturday August 29, 2020 @05:04PM (#24319424)

I just read a chapter in Thomas Mann's "Magic Mountain", which goes into exactly this - boredom or uneventfulness drags out time in the present, because nothing keeps your mind occupied, but contracts it in hindsight, because longer units of time like days are basically the same and "collapse" into one in your memory. Excitement / novelty on the other hand do the opposite - time seems to go by faster in the present, but you make lots of distinct memories, so looking back it all appears longer.

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