Fast Time and the Aging Mind

Richard A. Friedman, writing for the NYT:

On the whole, most of us perceive short intervals of time similarly, regardless of age. Why, then, do older people look back at long stretches of their lives and feel it’s a race to the finish?

Here’s a possible answer: think about what it’s like when you learn something for the first time — for example how, when you are young, you learn to ride a bike or navigate your way home from school. It takes time to learn new tasks and to encode them in your memory. And when you are learning about the world for the first time, you are forming a fairly steady stream of new memories of events, places and people. […]

It’s simple: if you want time to slow down, become a student again. Learn something that requires sustained effort; do something novel.

★ Friday, 26 July 2013