Blog Post No. 489
As I get older, the weeks go by faster and faster. It’s a common phenomenon that was shaken up by the nearly two-year-long shutdown. During that odd period, time lost some of its meaning. The months would blink by, but the days would sometimes drag. The temporary change seemed to soften the edge of the speedy weeks in exchange for a potentially worst manipulation of time.
In our understanding of the universe, time and space are inexorably linked. Some people way smarter than me may argue the point, but as far as I can get my head around it, the only thing that can change time is relativity. Our perception of time is another thing all together. When we’re stuck at the day job in a slow afternoon, the hours crawl by. When we’re enjoying a fun day off, it’s over in a flash. A watched pot never boils, as they say.
If that’s true, does a watched week slow down? I doubt it because what adult has the time to spend staring at a clock for 168 hours? When I first started going back to the day job, my perception of a week was still in flux. The first few months were light on the hours, like dipping a toe in the water. While life sped up a little, it did so as inconsistently as my schedule.
I was given more shifts towards the end of last year as things slowly crept open, but my schedule was all over the place and constantly changing day-to-day. Consequently, I didn’t have a chance to worry about the passage of time when I didn’t know if I was going to work the next day. I’ve started back at my old facility, though, with some almost regular hours. I love the routine, but now I find the weeks are slipping by faster than ever.
It could be because I’m noticing it again and it just seems faster. It could be that I’m just two years older since the shutdown and that’s just how it is. Either way, it’s been slightly (but not overwhelmingly) distressing. I’ve started on the fourth draft of the Invasion Novel, but it’s already been a week and I don’t have a week’s worth of work to show for it. I’m used to stumbles, but my window is closing, so I need to get back into the groove quickly. Especially with the weeks moving by so fast.
Ben Van Dongen 