As I get older I get the feeling that time is moving by much faster than it did when I was younger. As a child for example, I always thought that the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas morning was the equivalent of the entire time I had been alive up to that point. And Christmas Eve was always the longest night of the year!
Remember when summer lasted forever? Nowadays summer feels like a long weekend. The time between Memorial Day and Labor Day, once a sweet eternity, is now a madcap rush, not unlike the feeling one gets while racing down the freeway to the airport. With one eye on the road the other looking for state troopers, your hope fades that you will ever make the last flight home on a Friday evening. And so it is with summer. Why does time seem to go by so much faster now? Some say it’s because we are much busier than our ancestors ever were. No doubt farmers living in the pre-industrial age, tilling their fields with a horse drawn plow had loads of time to spare. Imagine how much time housewives had on their hands in the days before dishwashers, washing machines, dryers and microwaves. Yeah, leisurely lives they led. They had it made.
There are some theories floating in cyberspace about the likelihood that time is actually speeding up. One theory suggests that something called the Schumann Resonance or heartbeat of Earth used to be 7.83 cycles per second. Apparently it’s been rising since 1980. It is now over 12 cycles per second, leaving us with the equivalent of about 16 hours per day instead of 24. Note to theorists: The missing 8 hours might be the ones that occur while you’re sleeping which would make them hard to track. The more I dig into the “Schumann Resonance” though, the more convinced I am that it has merit in at least one respect. A smart candidate for the Presidency could score serious points making 24 hours an issue. Promising to restore time to its original and rightful place in our system of government could win votes, no? Republican candidates can assign blame to the Carter Administration by suggesting that he wasted so much time that time itself started to slip away. A wily Democrat like President Obama could point to The Resonance as what the so-called Reagan revolution was really all about.
But I digress.
The fact is that man came up with the concept of time. It was man who decided that 60 seconds equals a minute and 60 minutes equals an hour. These units still exist and can be measured.
So why do we feel like time is going by faster than it used to? I am pleased to report that yesterday, December 28, 2011, I found the answer. I was shopping in a Target store in Franklin, Tennessee. As I meandered through the aisles, I happened upon a row of Hallmark and other greeting cards six feet high and fifteen feet long. Remember the date, December 28th, still 3 days before New Year’s Eve and just 3 days after Christmas. Now which greeting cards do you think I saw completely dominating the racks? If you said Valentine’s Day cards treat yourself to a Be Mine candy heart. Valentine’s Day is seven weeks away! Yet, by the time it arrives we will have been completely inundated by retail displays, advertisements and junk mail from jewelers reminding us to buy something special for that someone special in our lives. What galls me is that by the time the day arrives, by no later than 6:00 p.m. on the day itself, retailers will be restocking their shelves with St. Patrick’s Day paraphernalia.
No wonder time seems to fly by. Living in the present these days is hard work. We are always being pushed ahead to the next holiday, the next season. Does rushing each holiday really work? Is anyone reading this post ready to forget the Christmas or Hanukkah holidays? It occurs to me that I’m asking a foolish question since the business version of the Christmas season now lasts so long that one is tempted to not bother taking down the tree at all. Still are you actually ready to focus on Valentine’s Day? If you have already bought your Valentine’s Day cards, have you also mailed them? Please let me know. And while you’re at it, send me your menu for the 4th of July barbecue.
Copyright 2011, Len Serafino. All rights reserved.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comment:
Len, your writing and blog always brighten my day and improve my thinking which is tough to do.
I was amazed this year that the Christmas music, decorations, and sales were up "before" Thanksgiving this year, and it was not an isolated occurance but seemed to be widespread.
You're right, it's hard to live in the present these days, but I'll keep trying.
Post a Comment