The Time Of Our Lives

Do you remember how, as a child, time seemed to pass so slowly? The ten minutes before the start of your favorite cartoon was more that enough time for a game with your siblings (but, strangely, that last hour before bed couldn’t possibly have lasted more than twenty minutes). A day’s class was an eternal, indescribable torture, and every one of them was different. Different lessons each day, some of them even interesting. Different classes each year, some better than others. The only thing longer than summer vacation was the school year that it took to get there.

It’s only as adults that days speed ever faster into the next. How an entire month can go by in a blink. Or an entire year. What happens to us that the days that used to last forever are replaced by years that never made a difference?

At least part of it is biological. It is indisputable truth that child minds work differently that adult minds, and that children learn faster and more easily than adults. Young brains are biologically more dynamic and flexible that older brains. Children are capable of recovering from brain injuries and aphasias that would be catastrophic to adults. Young brains simply form and reform neural connections faster and more dynamically than adult brains. And since learning is all about the formation of neural connections, young brains learn much faster and more dynamically than adult minds. Since what this means is that children’s minds effectively absorb and process details and events MUCH more deeply than adult minds, it’s natural that the brain experience related temporal anomalies. Take a brain that is absolutely primed to learn and expose it to a crowed city street for ten minutes. Take a brain that is a little more analytical, and little more structured in its tendencies, and put it on the same street for the same amount of time. Hell, even for the SAME period. The brain that is primed to receive input is going to notice and remember MUCH more of the little details. Every minute, if not every second, will be defined by something happening; each moment will be distinct and differentiable from the last.

The older brain, by comparison, is much more able to interpret and understand the goings-on on the street (by dint of the very structure and analysis that get in the way of pure observation), but simply does not absorb as many of the little details. The ten minutes fly by, and unless there’s something “notable” happening, the brain is not going to seize onto a great many things to give definition to each minute, or even (barring a car accident or drive-by) give much definition to the ten minute period as a whole.

So why does it seem odd that a young brain would count that 10 minute period as a definable, memorable period, whose passage was notable (either as very exciting or as excruciatingly boring), whereas an older brain would hardly notice the passage of that time at all? When your kids start complaining about how long it has been since you’ve done something, or about how long something has lasted, they’re not really exaggerating. For them, it really has been a long time.

Hell, look at ADD or (taken to the extreme) autism. Children whose brains are so fluid and dynamic in the neural connections that form and fire that the brain has problems focusing on anything in particular? A brain that is so busy noticing and calculating and absorbing information that it can’t bring itself to really do anything with that information. Is this not a predictable evolutionary hiccup? Children’s brains are expected to absorb not only all the skills and knowledge that their parents learned, but also all the skills and knowledge that have developed over their parents’ lifetimes. Culturally, genetically, and epigenetically, evolution is going to find a way to accommodate that requirement, and I suspect that such evolution will spring from traits that we today consider hindrances or handicaps in those that experience them.

What will be the evolutionary step once the quirks that are ADD and autism mature into some functional mutation? Imagine a brain that with that breadth of observation, that speed of calculation, that perception of each moment as separate and defined. But where without sacrificing all that, the brain is capable of effectively focusing on and making effective practical use of any of those observations, affairs, and perceptions. Imagine a brain that is capable of effectively focusing on and making use of ALL of those observations, affairs, and perceptions. What might such a mind accomplish? What sort of renaissance might such a next-step renaissance man spark? Imagine Leonardo DaVinci, except instead of considering and coming up with novel applications in art and anatomy, is theorizing on quantum physics or psychology? Those sorts of genetic/epigenetic quantum leaps in intelligence or cognitive ability are historically documented. Humanity has taken sudden leaps forward where a specific individual is born with a genetically superior brain function, to the point where they are demonstrably more capable than those without the genetic tag. Evolution has in the past and will again lead to sudden, drastic leaps in human cognitive ability. How vast indeed is our children’s potential.

But turning back to the issue of perception of time, there’s more to that change of perception than just maturation of neural pathways as we age. There’s also the lives that we lead. As a child, there are milestones. Every weekend has something happening: little league, swim lessons, whatever. Every day of school has different lessons. Every year has different classes and different teachers. People are telling you what you’ll be learning next year, and as odd and unreal as it seems, sure enough, you go on and learn it. When you’re in school, you’re climbing the ladder, and each step is important. K though 12. College. Maybe grad school. Discernable steps along a marked path (with frequent mile-markers) towards a defined goal.

But then, at one point or another, we leave that path. We leave or lose the clearly marked trail, as we reach, abandon, or are barred from the defined goal. Mile markers stop rolling by. Rather than moving on to the next grade, we get jobs. Those jobs become our lives. Maybe we get married, maybe we don’t, but we settle into some sort of status quo. One day bleeds into the next, into the next week, the next month, the next year. We settle in and become boring, knowing we’re not happy, but not really unhappy, and it really is too convenient and comfortable to make a lot of trouble about it. We’ve got intoxicants to get us through. And counselors, to try to explain the reasons we’re stagnant and unhappy in living stagnant unhappy lives. Mostly, they try to convince us it’s because we just don’t appreciate the things we have, and we should suck it up and try to be more gracious. Before we know it, we’ve been at a job we hate for five years, haven’t been on vacation for three years, and aren’t even managing to have much in the way of quality sex. How stagnant can life get, where not even orgasms get a rise out of us?

What does it take to break free from the status quo that sets around us like concrete? Often times, it takes – or will be precipitated by – a sudden infusion of life. A little break from the ordinary, maybe where you go on vacation, or have a rare good time with old friends. Share some stories and jokes and laughs, the way you did when you were young. To get past endless gray monotony, you need defining events (not necessarily spectacular events; just a series of events, each of which was memorable), and many of them. You need to spend some time where the time seems to pass slowly, because every moment is wonderful. Until you get shaken out of the rut of the status quo, you have nothing else to compare the status quo to. No reason to wonder just how much greater things Might Be. Certainly no reason to consider going after those things.

I got to thinking about all this for a few reasons. First of all, because I’ve lost at least three years to my current status quo. Not a whole lot happening, personally or professionally. A lot of good times, and a few halcyon moments, but for the most part just a status quo. It’s not really satisfying. It’s not what I want. But it has been really, REALLY comfortable. To he point where I have not a serious care in the world, and where my every aspiration for toys and tangible things either has been satisfied, or could be satisfied should I decide to indulge. It’s been really easy. I never even really noticed the passage of time until a friend asked me if I was happy about my life. I asked her to define the standard I should use. She asked me: if the next five years where just like the last five years, would you be okay with that? My immediate and overwhelming response: FUCK NO. While this status quo has been very comfortable, it has not been very satisfying. It turns out that material bounty (which I have in spades) is a poor substitute for intangible happiness.

Secondly, I’ve been thinking a lot about it because people have been coming to me with relationship issues. I’m currently rendering at least part time marriage or relationship advice to four people. I love all of them, and I’m glad to help all of them, but I can’t help laughing at the irony of married people (some married more than once) coming to a 32-year old bachelor for consultation. I suspect its because they want or need some rational insight, which I’m sometimes able to provide. Also, the lack of drama in my life means that they can count on me to actually listen to them, rather than just waiting for my turn to talk about my own woes.

In any rate, the trend that I’ve noticed in all my friends who are having relationship breakages is that the biggest problem seems to be the settling into an unsatisfying status quo. Either they have become people they don’t like, they are living a life they don’t like, or both. The practical manifestation of that status quo (whether based on legitimate gripe or on unreasonable expectation) is unacceptable to one member of the relationship. Whether it’s women who have gotten married only to find themselves living alone in strange places with absentee husbands, or husbands who are tired of their wives’ efforts to change them into someone neither of them will like. Or even just simple cases where The Spark has died in the relationship. They have spent some period immersed in a status quo that, for one reason or another, is untenable any longer. Too much time already lost, and they’re not willing to have the days to come pass the same as the ones gone by. They had some wonderful moments, know good times are out there, and the relationship is not going to come though with them. They want to be happy. And, strangely, are almost always apologetic about it. Go figure.

For my part (and despite overwhelming desire to spend more time saying what I think and feel about things), I try to keep rational when talking to people about their lives. I certainly am not qualified to opine about the interaction of married people, but I can out-rational pretty much anyone I know. And it’s both easy and true to point out that each person in each of these relationships is responsible for their own happiness. This is the only life they have. Whether their reasons and reasoning in making the change are sound or not, if they are trying to build a happier life outside the relationship than the one they had in the relationship, how can you possibly say they have done anything wrong? In all of it, the only thing that really upsets me is seeing my friends in more pain than they need to be in. Not because of the dissolution of the relationships, but because of all the grief that goes hand in hand with the dissolution.

Back to the issue of temporal perceptions, each of my friends, in separate directions, has been freed from the status quo, and is caught in the chaos that is the alternative. Time is passing slowly for them, but for the wrong reasons: Every day is difficult and painful as a result of their situation. They wonder if they’ve done everything they could have or should have in their relationships. They wonder if they’re fucking up their lives with the decisions they’re making, and wonder if they’re being unreasonable. They wonder if they should go back to the way things were, and wonder if they if could go back if they wanted to. They wonder how much they are going to regret what they’re doing. They hope that the good times they know will come again get here soon, because each day in the meantime is gonna be an eternity. Mix in the usual travails of professional, scholastic, and/or social interaction, and every day is distinctly NOT routine. Time is passing slowly.

We have all had wonderful days that seemed to last forever. But most of the time, the days that seem to last forever are the ones where everything that can go wrong, does. Where tragedy strikes. Where we are in pain. A minute of torture feels infinitely longer than a solid hour of gentle massage.

Take by contrast, the day-to-day routine. The comfort of the humdrum. While a solid, steady status quo is not always enjoyable, and is not notable or memorable, it is almost never painful. You know what you get, because it’s what you have. And while what you have might not be a whole lot, at least you DO have it. We settle into status quos, and allow our lives to fly by uneventfully, because doing so spares the risk of loss and pain. We feed our lives to mediocrity, because doing that is easier than any of the alternatives. And unless something happens that snaps us out of it, we don’t even realize just how long it’s been since anything has happened to define the passage of time.

But then something happens that makes you notice how staid the status quo is, and you decide to make changes in hopes of something brighter. Or else some defining event occurs, which suddenly creates a new status quo, itself unacceptable. Either way, a change becomes necessary. Which further muddles the status quo, as you and those around you must work out an inherently discordant process: reaching a status quo that at least one of you is not going to like as well as they liked the last. But that’s life. And it’s ours. If we do not live it, no one else shall.

The status quo must change sometimes; if it doesn’t, our lives pass by in uneventful mediocrity, even if (or perhaps, because) the process is painless and easy. So remember: it’s only the status quo. The only reason it exists is because it does, not because it must. You can change it, and don’t need to apologize for it. There is nothing to be ashamed of in wanting to live your life well. No need to apologize for wanting the fun times, the vacations, the attention, The Spark. No transgression in wanting your days to pass slowly, with each moment as spectacular as it can be.

Reaching the next mile marker means leaving the last maker behind, and just because you can’t see the next marker doesn’t mean it’s not there waiting for you. You just gotta decide to move forward, and pay whatever toll is imposed along the way. Ideally, the best things in your life will move forward with you. But sometimes, moving ahead means leaving things behind. That’s just life. It’s not that some things are not meant to be. It’s just that almost nothing is meant to be forever.