2006.02.02
Oh, and lest I forget... here's how to Celebrate Groundhog Day. I've always loved this day, even before the movie that goes along with it.
Gross Education of the Moment
How a Hen Lays Her Egg...a lot of detail. A little gross in a too-much-detail kind of way, but interesting. (via Candi.)
Man... that can't tickle.
Speculation of the Moment
Finally, many readers weighed in on the topic of why time seems to accelerate as we age. Don Scott suggested, "When we are younger, each unit of passing time is fractionally larger. One year of my 16-year-old daughter's life is 1/16th of her total life span, while one year of my life is 1/46th, which is why it seemed to her to take forever to get her driver's license, and it seems to me like I just got mine." He adds, "At least for us older readers it will seem like no time before the 2006 season starts." Deanna Julich of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, similarly supposed, "As we age, each year seems to pass faster because it becomes a smaller percentage of the life already lived. When you're four, a year is 25 percent of your life, so it feels like a long time. When you're 25, like I am, a year is four percent of the life you've lived. When you're 63, a year is only 1.58 percent of your life. Each unit of time seems to go by faster because it shrinks as a portion of your life." Barry Fox of Helena, Mont., adds, "To a three-year-old, living until the fourth birthday requires living 33 percent of their entire life span again. To a 60-year-old the same year represents less than two percent of life span. The 60-year-old would need to live to 80 to pass through 33 percent of life span again -- and that too would seem like quite a long time." Don Kemler of Alkmaar, the Netherlands, supposes it's not the passage of time but changes in the supply we are sensing: When there's a lot of your own life ahead, time seems plentiful and when there's less ahead, time seems scarce. Sean Thompson of Burton, Ohio, supposes that with each passing year, we have more memories; the memories get stacked and squeezed in our brains and hence seem closer together. Douglas Harms of Hollywood, Calif., supposes, "As we grow older, we gain more responsibilities and unavoidable nuisances that must be dealt with; nothing makes valuable time disappear faster than a set of dodge-proof chores." Greg Miskin of Bellevue, Wash., suggests time seems to accelerate because we become accustomed to its passage: "The first occasion you drive to a new location seems to take a long time. Subsequent trips pass more quickly. This can be attributed to the amount of attention paid during the first trip that is not required afterward. During the first run, we don't know what is important so we pay attention to everything. After the first time, the mind only needs to keep track of the few significant landmarks. Much of life is this way." Ken Leiphart of Camp Hill, Pa., supposes, "Time drags when you are a kid because you can't wait to grow up, then flies when late in life because you'd much rather not get older."Some neat theories in there I thought.
That last speculation gets, I fear, to the core of the matter. When we're young, we want time to speed up and therefore it crawls. When we're old, we want time to slow down and therefore it flies. Nature's revenge is giving us the opposite of our wish. My 10-year-old, Spenser, cannot wait for VI:XXXVIII Eastern on Sunday and the start of the Super Bowl -- he says it's taking much too long. From my perspective, kickoff will come all too soon.