Is time actually moving faster or are these faster times an illusion?

What is happening? I wake up in the morning and half the year is gone, wasn't it just yesterday I saw the Big Apple drop? 

Everyone I am speaking to seems to be expressing the same bewildered feeling of accelerated living. Perhaps it is true what they say, time seems to fly past faster as you get older, and everyone around me is basically over 40 therefore there is a shared experience. Birthdays appear to creep up quite faster then they used to. Once I looked forward to a birthday celebration, now I want to avoid it.


Or maybe due to several earthquakes the earth's rotation actually has sped up. According to NASA scientists, Earth's day was shortened by 1.8 millionths of a second after the Japan earthquake. With that little factoid, now I am given the certainty that the Earth is spinning faster than before, and it isn't just a psychological age related time warp. We heard a lot about the Earth's axis being changed but it seems that is not so, but rather the earthquake rearranged the Earth's mass, bringing it closer to its rotation axis. A really good example to understand this phenomenon, as written by Beth Lebwohl in association with Earthsky.org, is a figure skater bringing her arms closer to her, which makes her spin faster.  


Yes, I believe it, the Earth is spinning faster and the days have shortened explaining why my Mondays feel closer to my Fridays, and weekends end before they've begun. I close my eyes and it's garbage day again.


But truly, time doesn't really exist, time is an invention we created to compartmentalize our life. If I were on another smaller planet, which was spinning much faster, my chronological age would change faster too, not sure about my biological age though, would I be really aging as fast? Time is an illusion, and the best way to break away from it is to be present in the moment. "Now" is a fabulous place to live your life. In the Now there is stillness, and a greater sense of being. When I stop to feel the present moment I suddenly feel as though I am outside time, as though awakened from the illusion into reality. Self aware, calm and grateful for every sound I hear, every beautiful thing I see; and every sensation is a delight. 


Then poof! Snapped back into the worm hole of time, stress and fast pace living, trying to catch up with deadlines, laundry, cleaning up, paying bills, preparing lunch, making plans for next month and the list goes on. I guess we can't avoid the world we created here in North America, I might one day decide to move to Europe, to a country that still takes afternoons off for a siesta. 


Our only escape from the fleeting "impression" of time, is our own effort to find gaps in time to simply be still and enhance our self awareness. Finding gaps in time. It may appear to be a difficult task, but I've come to realize that it isn't, it just requires you to put YOU on the top of the list of things to do - find those gabs, and enter into them with full consciousness, do something for yourself, savour the moment. 


The Earth may be spinning faster, getting older might be a contributing factor as well, time will tick as it always has, but only we can make ourselves suspended in time by shifting our perception. We have that power.

3 comments:

Sandra said...

I'm delighted to have found your website and this particular post was a perfect fit for where I am right "now". Many blessings to you for your work and how you are able to express.
I also like your layout. Currently, I'm just starting a blog and lumbering through getting up to speed with the help of an administrator. Eventually, I want a site like yours. More to come, many ideas to share, I'll subscribe here and appreciate your checking out my blog as well. http://lifesthirdtrimester.wordpress.com

Anonymous said...

Alzhemiers and Dementia our greatest friends!

Contributor said...

Sandra thank you for the feedback and Anonymous, my grandmother was not necessarily so happy in her sad state of alzeimers and you know the past is what they remember best, it is the current events they cannot hold on too.