There’s a word we use in so many contexts, we can hardly have a conversation without making some sort of reference. The word, of course, is Time. We can’t see it or touch it or smell it but yet we’re bombarded by it. We can measure it and we reference it frequently, our lives revolve around it.
“Hey, what time is it”
“Time to go?”
“When’s breakfast?”
We use it as a reference of the past, as in “It rained here yesterday”, yesterday is a definite period. When we say “It’s going to rain here tomorrow” that’s not conclusive, it may or may not rain, it’s only a prediction. An appointment in the future can be made, “I have a doctor’s appointment in two weeks”
We use time references frequently without realizing it. “Well, when I was a kid” to signify a point in our lives. “I had an accident last week” or “My vacation starts on Monday”.
“Time for bed, kids.” Who hasn’t heard that or used it, probably both?
“I’m older than you” as if that statistic of time passage has some meaningful weight.
We use calendars, clocks and some covet expensive timepieces to ensure we show up at the appointed place at the prescribed hour. Our bosses pay us for performing the proper duties for an agreed upon period of the day.(See, time references).
Before the mathematicians developed some method of breaking increments of life into measurable periods our ancestors used moons or seasons as a measurement. Even at that it was a record of recurring events.
We each have memories of past events that somehow became embedded in our memories. My earliest memory is when I was about 3-4 years old. My older brother and I rolled a big (for little kids) snowball and then used a stick to saw it in half. Now I’m not really sure if that happened or if it somehow got made up and inserted into being a fact. Another memory along the same line was my mother walking me to kindergarten for the first (or few) times. It was a long walk for a little 1/4Score, a mile from our house. I didn’t want to go but I was out voted.
In my memory, after the first couple times I didn’t want the other kids to see me with my Mom as I was a “big” kid so she would let me go across the last intersection alone and then watch to make sure I went in the right door. Whether that’s reality or not I don’t know, but it’s in my memory so maybe a little truth.
It seems that age plays a trick on us and speeds up time. Most of us probably remember how long summer vacations were. In June the time seemed endless, by the end of August we were ready to go back to school, see our school friends and tackle a new world. It took forever though to get through 12 years of school. Skip ahead, now as we are older the years rush by.
I find it hard to believe that I have been retired from the Army for 50 years. Somehow, humanoids showed up a really long, long time ago. When we read of man’s history a thousand years is nothing. The earliest inhabitants in North America can be traced back a few thousand years.
And I wonder why I worry about the price of gas…
Our changing perspectives of time’s ‘speed’ is the most curious. A busy day at work goes by much quicker than an idle afternoon. Time always flies until you can’t belieeeve it’s only 4:10.
In my army days we go paid monthly so we had to budget our financial resources with the calendar. A month seemed to pass so slowly.
As one frog said to the other, “Time’s fun when you’re having flies!”
I didn’t want to go but I was out voted.
#metoo
https://youtu.be/Qr0-7Ds79zo?si=sbCqgbqT5pjfq6N-
I’m my youth I didn’t like Pink Floyd. I didn’t have a reason, maybe it was the theatre geeks that liked them. Learning to Fly and this song changed my opinion.
I bought a CD player for a small fortune and that CD was $18 in like 1986 and the first one I bought.
https://hifi-wiki.com/index.php/Technics_SL-P_500
Older bro bought a CD player around ~1983.
The thing seemed like magic.
We had an independent music store. He bought and sold CDs. Used they were $8 in the late 90s early 2000s. I didn’t have any money until about 1999, spent a good chunk of what was left after saving for school and fuel there.
You are young and life is long
And there is time to kill today
And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun
TEN YEARS HAVE GOT BEHIND YOU!
I measure my life by garbage day.
It was today and the truck came and went while I was cleaning out the litter box.
Oh well. It’ll be back next week.
I took the boy camping and he got a frame of reference on time that blew his mind, a tree had blown down in the camp site and then it was trimmed into a nicely squared off stump. I counted ~280 rings. It was still green when the storm toppled it and thousands like it along the road and in our camp.
“This tree is older than America!!??”
The life of a long lived tree is fleeting. May ours pass as a warm summer day.
https://ibb.co/LhprxWtx
It’s hard to imagine some things, the Ice Age was 10000 years ago. It doesn’t seem relevant when I’m looking at my little green tomatoes and wanting days to pass quickly so they’ll grow and ripen.
Why would someone want time to speed up? It doesn’t make sense. We wish our lives away and suddenly we’re old…
My 20s feel like yesterday, and also a lifetime ago. Ten years ago I was wrapping up my two years in Singapore.
Damn. Damn, damn.
And I’m a year away from TWO score. Hard to imagine, in every way.
I can’t remember what Greek or Roman myth it is about being able to not remember or skip all the bad bits of life and then finding out that you have ended up burning through your life in an instant.
Pain, loss, regret all take up a pretty big hunk of our lives to work their way through. I’m sure Ron has touched on it more than one in his Stoicism pieces about those pieces of your life having meaning and being worth living.
Same. For me, there’s certain events or cultural reference points that will pop into my head, and when you realize how long ago they took place it’s jarring. And the relativity of time with age that FS mentioned is also a big one. I remember being a kid in the ’90s when ’70s nostalgia was in full bloom (including the shitty fashions making a brief comeback). The ’90s are now a full decade further in the past than the ’70s were when I formed those memories. It’s weird.
by the end of August we were ready to go back to school, see our school friends and tackle a new world
When I was in school I didn’t want summer to end. Now summer doesn’t end early enough.
How many kids do you have?
Time keeps on slipping . . . into the future
It can also be killed by a cannon
Or just go by
Obligatory…especially for those of us for whom more time has gone by.
#DeepCuts
Or for threedoor and MikeS, it can stand still
In different ways
Rush.
You monster!
One of my least hated, the army band version is really good. I appreciate that they left out the percussion.
The army band is a funny thing, one time in the chow hall at FOB Rustimyah I made my way through the line and by the time I got seated the band appeared. It was strange and cool, why the army deploys them to play just a night or two at random FOBs I don’t know. I did enjoy it that night and I certainly won’t forget them.
Time is just what they say
https://youtu.be/9FzCWLOHUes
Answer: 25 or 6 to 4
“Time to mow the lawn”
Shush. I’ve put that off and it’s caught up.
“He doesn’t know whether to shit or wind his watch.”
“It seems that age plays a trick on us and speeds up time. Most of us probably remember how long summer vacations were. In June the time seemed endless, by the end of August we were ready to go back to school, see our school friends and tackle a new world. It took forever though to get through 12 years of school. Skip ahead, now as we are older the years rush by.”
I remember reading a few articles along the lines of this one over the last year or so attempting to explain the phenomenon.
https://reportingscience.com/2025/10/21/new-study-reveals-why-time-seems-to-move-faster-the-older-we-get/
Interesting. For me at least, this also checks out in terms of novelty seeking, for instance. Even into my late 20s I would voraciously consume new and experimental music. Now I typically only listen to a handful of new albums a year, and when I do, I’m rarely impressed — because the new material is being compared to a much more extensive base of reference. I know without a doubt that some of my favorite music – the stuff that still delights me and transports me to a particular time, mood, or state of mind – wouldn’t grab me at all if I were hearing it for the first time today. Scumfuck brain says “Yeah, I remember that chord progression and electric guitar tone, every indie rock band was using it in 2002…”
And I only listen to older stuff, both country and western. As the youngest kid I had to listen to what my older brothers liked. The Elvis era, R & R, I was on my own.
I stayed with those, even now. I don’t recognize any of the names of the last 30 years of country music.
I heard some random song at a cafe the other day and thought, “this sounds like Tame Impala” – it was indeed Tame Impala.
Check me out, so hip I can recognize the style of an artist that’s been around for a decade…
Bruh… Innerspeaker was 16 years ago…
Fourscore.
I don’t recognize any of the names of the last thirty years of country music either.
Folks listened to 80s country. Outside of Willie, Waylon and the Boys I didn’t care for it.
Who does? I hear that stuff on the lake every once and a while. Is it even country? Who are the people who listen to it?
People shotgunning Coors RJ.
That’s the audience.
I had read that elders in isolated Amazonian tribes also reported the sense of time speeding up, which would fit with it being some sort of biological process versus an artifact of our modern lives.
Speaking of new music, @Evan — new Modest Mouse album dropped last month, and unlike The Golden Casket, it’s not total dog shit. Certainly not the best in their catalog, but solid.
Tangentially on topic, since I began my life’s third reboot just about this time 3 years ago, as trite and cliched as it is, this old saw has become one of my favorite mantras:
Keeps me going when I sometimes get myself mired in despair for my pissed-away youth.
I planted about 7-8 apple trees a few weeks ago. Should have apples about 2034. Either an optimist or stupid, you decide.
I ended up staring at the radio on Independence Day when the announcer said the Census Bureau estimates only 25% of current Americans were alive during the Bicentennial.
It doesn’t seem that long ago. But damn I was in high school a half a century ago.
Many of us commenting here were born closer to VE and VJ Days than we are from 2026 to 9/11.
That’s one of those cultural reference points I was talking about earlier. For me, it’s strange to think that there are people currently holding public office who weren’t alive when 9/11 happened, for instance. I remember my mom driving me to school the morning of the OKC bombing. Communications technology being what it was, we weren’t sure if school was cancelled or not.
We were out at a social event after work (a coworker is moving on). The guys around me were talking about sports. The guy next to me says he really can’t throw a ball anymore without hurting himself. Then he says he’s 52.
Just two years older than my son.
But I am not old. My father tells me this. 4score reminds me on occasion.
My son is old enough to collect SS. At his age I’d been retired nearly 10 years.
Also tangentially on topic: as a wristwatch lover, I’ve never been able to get into Breitling at all. My dad loved them. Then again, I’m generally not a huge fan of pilot watches, the GMT Master/GMT Master II (and my homage thereof) excepted.
I do, however, love grandfather clocks. Even as a kid, when I had to get dragged to my grandparents’ house, their old grandfather clock was a minor fascination. I wouldn’t mind owning one some day if my station in life improves.
Take your time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs8dp2ofgyo
The Alan Parsons Project – Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhRzORqNa0E
The Chambers Brothers – Time Has Come Today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIqwzQ7g-Cc