Steven Johnson, successful, middle-aged author and thinker, is moving from New York to San Francisco. His main reason for moving is to slow down time:
Another old friend — my oldest, in fact — wrote an email to me after I told him the news of our move. We’ve both been in New York for two decades, and we are both watching our kids growing up at lightning speed. “Change like this slows down time,” he wrote. When you’re in your routine, frequenting the same old haunts, time seems to accelerate — was it just four years ago that our youngest son was born? But all the complexities of moving — figuring out where to live, getting there, and then navigating all the new realities of the changed environment — means that the minutes and hours that once passed as a kind of background process, the rote memory of knowing your place, suddenly are thrust into your conscious awareness. You have to figure it out, and figuring things out makes you aware of the passing days and months more acutely. You get disoriented, or at least you have to think for a while before you can be properly oriented again.
Interesting, right? Well, according to David Eagleman, it turns out Mr. Johnson’s thinking may be well supported by our biology:
One of the seats of emotion and memory in the brain is the amygdala, he explained. When something threatens your life, this area seems to kick into overdrive, recording every last detail of the experience. The more detailed the memory, the longer the moment seems to last. “This explains why we think that time speeds up when we grow older,” Eagleman said—why childhood summers seem to go on forever, while old age slips by while we’re dozing. The more familiar the world becomes, the less information your brain writes down, and the more quickly time seems to pass.
Read more of this New Yorker article here
I’ve had the pleasure of knowing a few people who have done a ton of different things in their lives. They’ve had a slew of wildly different careers, mastered a dozen different hobbies or skills, sampled countless more, traveled and lived all over the world and produced a lot of stuff. These people are constantly picking up something new. These people also seem much younger than they actually are, and much younger than their friends who haven’t lived the same kind of life. I’m sure the constant change and learning has a lot to do with it.
On the other side, I can definitely see how a guy who goes to a plant, or a postal sorting center, or a factory every day for 30 years, doing the same thing over and over and over again, can look up one day and wonder where his life went. That’s terrifying.
Shunning familiarity doesn’t require constantly moving residences. Any experience that is new or unfamiliar or simply not part of your routine, can accomplish the same thing. Make an effort to eat at different restaurants, or in different parts of town, or explore parks or museums or whatever in your city that you’ve never been to. Take on a new project. Learn some new skills. Do different stuff.
This is also my newest (and best?) excuse to travel. In addition to all the other benefits (having your perspective changed, meeting people, sharing experiences, trying new things, etc.), travel means I get “more” time on this planet? Sign me up.
.