Time Passages
Just trying to express in an e-mail to a friend the weird things that happen to time with age and other circumstances:
The bizarre thing is that time goes by really fast, but there’s a lot of it. Or it goes further away faster. Or something.
So it seems amazing that we’ve lived here for 4 years already, but our arrival here also seems unfathomable eons ago. It seems like less than 4 years in its speed, but more in its length. A moment flits by and shoots away into the far distance.
So what’s 6 more years till I’m 70? A lifetime in an eyeblink.
As a bonus, here’s the Al Stewart song.
And for real nostalgiaficionados, the original (I think):
Ambiance 
Maxwell James said,
October 19, 2010 at 2:14 pm
When I was nineteen I received a letter from a good friend. On the back of the envelope she wrote out the famous quote from Robert Southey:
“Live as long as you may, the first twenty years are the longest half of your life.”
I’ve never completely forgiven her.
amba12 said,
October 19, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Mean girl!!
Maxwell James said,
October 19, 2010 at 2:25 pm
She is a year older than me, to be fair.
Charlie Martin said,
October 19, 2010 at 2:32 pm
FOUR Years!
Oy.
wj said,
October 20, 2010 at 8:34 am
When you’re a kid, a year seems like forever. Not least because it is such a major fraction of the life you’ve experienced so far. At 20, another 20 years may seem like an enormous amount of time, because it’s longer than the span of time you currently remember. And by the time you hit 50, you can say things like “I really don’t like waiting for XXX, but it’s only a couple more years.”
It will be interesting to see if, as one nears 100, the amount of time into the future that seems reasonably small shrinks again.
dustbury.com » Time flies and other bugs said,
October 20, 2010 at 4:13 pm
[…] of course, that you’re at absolute zero (0 degrees Kelvin), which you’re not. Which probably doesn’t explain how it is that time, whether it’s expressed in seconds or… The bizarre thing is that time goes by really fast, but there’s a lot of it. Or it goes […]