Time

Time and Life

Finally the actual post

Time what is it and how we experience it

Time is one of those funny things because it’s always moving, but it never feels like it passes. We’re born we live and we die, but we always experience just the present moment. Despite the movement of time, the world just stays static to us. We are changing constantly but so invested in our current state that these minute and constant changes never register in our minds. The changes prove too small to reshape our self concept significantly. This is true in all areas of life. The small and big changes never feel like they happen. Life just seems to pass while remaining unchanged. We never feel time and transformation through it. Transformation is a process not an event. Change is cemented before it happens. No one gets married or divorced on a whim. Those are the product of every small interaction leading up to the big decision point. Any event just formalizes the internal journey finally reflected in the outside world.

While the event of a break up or new job can be jarring in the moment, we never are fully surprised. The adjustment is mainly situational. The alignment of internal feelings and external situation is the last step on a transformation process. The physical situational change is often the hardest and simplest step. We are forced to make a decision in response to a complex question. Often, a question devoid of an answer. The next step is just taken. This is often the hardest because we grow up being taught that the world is about clear growth. Charted paths. Questions and answers. Then one day we realize life is not a series of questions and answers, but choices and consequences. Paths chosen and paths avoided. Time creates inflection points that position us at divergent roads. We must deviate from the previously straight and simple path we were on. We are at the fork. We must decide what is best. There is not right answer. Further we can never free ourself from the nagging counterfactual that will arise. A door that leads to a completely different unexplored life that will never exist except within the doubts and reaffirming thoughts in your mind. Real world decisions are devoid of grades. The path not traveled will never be explored. The counter factual never exists outside of our heads. All of this is scary and why physical change lags the emotional process to get to that point. The decision your making has an unknown and unknowable correct answer, which is paralyzing. We wait. Thinking through every permutation of our possible futures until we commit to a path. Rarely do we have a gun to our head forced to think through something we have never considered.

Even the seemingly shocking decisions are never out of the realm of possibility because every decision we make is rooted in one core truth. Life is finite and our allotted time is unknown. All change is pushed forward by the inevitable march of time. Time is the single most important feature in everyone’s life. Religion is the most foundational human institution because it addresses the most uncomfortable questions that come with time. How much time do we have. What should we do with that time. What happens when our times runs out. Time is the one thing we have no agency over. People have long searched for a fountain of youth with no success. Still, humans will never give up that search because the ability to unlock more time is the single most important thing we can do in life. Every decision becomes infinitely less important when we no longer have to account for time. We specialize in a career because we do not have time to learn everything. Monogamy is a function of finite time and the passing of time. We must raise the next generation. We must replace ourselves. We can only maintain appearance for so long, so we need to lock up our mate while still close to peak visual fitness. Every decision is made with the ultimate knowledge and acceptance of our death. Death is the only thing that truly pushes us to transform and live.

Death makes life a continuous transformation process. Each day we trade small incremental change for our finite time. This trade is forced. Every day we are getting a bit older, likely against our will. Every person prefers life to death. No matter, the time is being taken regardless of how we feel. Knowing we cannot barter for more time with the grim reaper we must default to our next best option. Using that time to make the most of our life. We implicitly accept this, but fail to really grasp it. We are changing so much, but the change is at such a small scale we never fully register it’s happening. Then one day you wake up. You’re just so much older than you think you are. The world has changed, so much around you and you’re still thinking it’s 2015 but in reality, it’s a decade later. The only thought you really can muster is what the fuck happened.

One of the great ironies of life, I guess. We know the world is changing. We know we are changing, but were so invested in our life that most of the change flies over our heads. Everyone can generally accept the argument above about change, but when the change is happening to you in your life that change is just really tough to reason. One day we’re running around the playground playing tag in third grade then were in high school. Change forces us to grow past who we are. We will never be that little kid again.

But somehow, we are always that little kid. Were also forced to change. To transform. To evolve, but the past sticks with us. A faint memory of times gone by. Memories gained. Time lost. Laughs had. Pain endured. Time passes, but we remain a construction and reflection of our past. We’re always that little kid running around on the playground playing tag. We are the shy kid on our first day of school. The kid who failed this test. The degree which we change while somehow remaining a living artifact of our past is what makes life such a beautiful mosaic. No matter how old we get that little kid in us will never die. Those past experiences will remain. The world may mature us and make us look haggard and feel achy. The world makes us feel like we have to do certain things and be a certain person. But even when we are deep in that swamp of expectation with our mind covered by the monotony of the daily grind, one small moment could change that. Transform us. Transport us back to another time when everything seemed so simple. Those simple days. The past.

We long for those simple days, but they seem to be at most a memory and possibly a fantasy. We long for them because the past is remembered for all the good and neglects all the bad. Whether it’s the enchantment of a time before modern technology with a picket fence and fire place, or a time in your life when you felt like you captured lightning in a bottle. Everything in the past felt simpler because it was simpler, but also because we know how it played out. A lot of the pain we experience in the present and anxiety for the future rests in the uncertainty of the outcome. The past is fond because we know exactly what happened. Maybe we long for that certainty or maybe we just long for the familiarity of times gone by. The friends and experiences had back then can never be recreated. These will be lost to time and eventually to memory. The long nights forgotten. The people lost. Best friends who became acquittances. True loves who became bitter exes. But also, the amazing moments, the chance encounter that brought an old friend back in your life. The awkward first date with your wife. Life has a funny way of making us feel like the good old days are behind us when in reality we are always present in the good old days. We will look back at where we are now and realize every moment embeds a cherished memory.

Time and change is just so confusing we have to fight it

Time is just so puzzling. Time is experienced all at once and not at all. The world remains stagnant yet constantly in motion. We just experience this one current moment, but that moment is always changing. Much like the paradox that says if you cut the distance in half continuously you can never reach the destination, our life changes constantly despite always being in the present moment. We never reach a destination. Every mountain we climb reveals the peak of a different mountain. A different challenge. It does feel weird to have the sense that you’ve always been in this one present moment yet your life is so radically different than it once was. Further that life will be unrecognizable in 6 months and 6 years, but we still only live that one moment. We never feel we change, but we have no choice to accept we constantly are changing. Moreover, we must embrace our dynamic ever-changing life. Time is too short. Change is an essential part of life. We do not have the time nor the ability to resist it.

Change is one of those things that just exists as itself regardless of our feelings toward it. Much in the way the sun does not care if you want it to shine change does not care if you want it or not. Change is coming. Change is happening. Right now and forever. Our feelings do not matter. Change is uncomfortable for everyone. We cling to the familiar. No one loves discomfort, but change doesn’t care. We are constantly changing regardless of how we feel. We must consciously embrace change. This mandates us to act before we are ready. Change waits for no one. Waiting to embrace change puts you behind. No one has been ready for significant change. Despite not being ready we must embrace the change when it presented. The ability to tolerate uncertainty is the key ingredient of outsized success. No matter that accepting change will lead to constant failure. Failure is the necessary, and painful, precondition of learning. No one has ever been ready for change.

Waiting for yourself to be ready for change is like writing a letter to Santa or wetting your pants on a cold day. It may make you feel warm inside, but waiting not helping your cause. Ready isn’t a simple concept. The optimal time for change is very domain dependent. Optimally ready can be acting 6 months to a year before you feel it’s really time or it could be seconds. This feeling isn’t unique to you. Anyone who has done anything hard to accomplish anything of substance big or small has done it for the first time without any training. Washington first war as general was the revolution. No one gets to pretend to be a parent for 5 years before they have responsibility. You didn’t do 5th grade 3 times until you perfected it. You moved onto 6th grade despite being a barely literate uncomfortable pre-teen. Take comfort in knowing that if you feel absolutely clueless when taking the next step, you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. No one is ever really that ready. The ones who seem ready are partially faking it and partially irrationally confident in their inadequate abilities to climb that next mountain. The version of you at the end of the journey would laugh and the hubris of your readiness at the beginning.

That’s the beautiful thing about life. No one is every ready. Most people are clueless taking locally novel action, but how could they be ready? How can you have experience of knowledge in something you’ve never done. You cant. You just have to pretend, hope, and try your best. That is what everyone does and humanity has made it pretty far on those basic premises. This works for 2 reasons. One ignorance is bliss and two humans are an optimistic species. We constantly underestimate their problem solving abilities. Throwing into a sink or swim situation people realize they are much better at swimming than they thought. It can never be THAT hard, even though it likely is. When were struggling we believe we can figure it out because were pretty smart and have no other choice but to do so anyways. We have no other choice because we just don’t have that much time. We will be dead soon. We are in a rush to jam as much life we can into the finite time we have.

Accepting failure isn’t an option. Immediate failure is what paves the way to long term success. While were alive, we must believe were ready to succeed so we can give it our best shot. This is scary. Novelty is tricky. The only answer. Do it scared. Do it terrified if you have to. It may be the only chance to do it at all. True failure is the result of never have failed. Never putting yourself in the uncomfortable position to reach for success. Those who reach for success aren’t omniscient gods. They know that striving for success means accepting failure and they just accept that. Tolerating uncertainty will always the thing rewarded most by society because of how much it sucks.

Growing up means we experience time as a continuum not a moment

Time is the most uncertain thing because it forces us to be 3 places at once but feel stuck in the moment. Strive for the future. Grow from our past. All the while being present in every moment. We admire children for their ability to be focused and joyous in the moment. We look back on those days wanting to get back to that state or feeling, but that childlike joy is very different from the integration of time we experience as adults. A full integration of past presence and future in one person is the highest calling of humanity. The ability to look at everyone and see these three different aspects of their life is what allows humans to truly understand someone.

Looking at someone in the moment is like reading one page in a book. It gives you a ton of information, but no context. Time is such a tricky character because of how much the present is shaped by the past and the future. Often sacrificed. True presence requires the understanding of past and future. The climax of a book takes on a completely different meaning when you read everything before and predict everything after it instead of just opening the book to a random page. Until we see the scared kid and future CEO, were blind to the meaning behind present action. The concept of presence is vital to happiness, but presence is not something manifested in the moment, but constructed over time. Being present with ourself requires an integration of time not the disregard of it. The present is just the future minus the past. Where we want to go and how far we have gotten so far. The effects of that journey shape who we are. The past both propels and weighs on us. Action is inextricably linked to past and future in a way that is inseparable from the now.

When we look at ourselves and others, we must realize how much this equation of presence governs every decision. Why is someone friendly or cold. Happy or sad. Our life is defined by our hope for the future and confidence we have built to shape that future through the achievements of our past. This gives us the demeanor we have in the present. We know this is true for us and we feel it viscerally. The human condition is consistent across the species. The only comfort comes in the realization that it must feel this way for everyone. Everyone is driven by their triumphs and traumas. Hopes and fears. That’s the beauty and challenge of life.

To truly see someone in the moment, we must see them in time. We realize everyone is just as scared and clueless and confused as the rest of us. When we look deeply into someone soul, we see the kid they once were. Look even deeper and see why they aren’t fully that innocent child anymore. While time remains a burden and limitation, constraints create innovation. Time is a gift that fires us forward. Realizing we must do because we soon won’t be able to. Time does not care what you think about it. Time ticks with each moment marking our soul. That leaves us with one option. To take the responsibility to mark it well.

Conclusion

We feel and are in many ways stuck in our lives and still somehow are desperately holding onto every moment like the strength of our grasp will prevent that moment from slipping. Nobody truly feels ready to step into the next stage of their life at the right moment. By the time someone is “ready” the moment has passed them. Much of life is believing that you are ready before you feel ready. When we look to the past, we realize no one who accomplished anything big or small was ready. Doing new things requires inexperience. When we look at our heroes from the past, we realize they like us were that little kid on the playground once too and in many ways still carry those moments with them. Carrying those pivotal moments of life is what leads to authentic action which is what leads to success.

It is nearly impossible to see the constant motion in your life. We see people stagnant at their current position in their current life. Life is the continuous ability to remain ourselves and a consciousness of our existence across the continuum of time. The concept of time passing is a tough thing to understand because to use it never does. We think those people older than us are so wise and mature and those younger so innocent and foolish. We rarely realize they are different iterations of us. We think that one day someone comes in, tell us the truth about the world, and we finally realize who we are. Finally become the adults that we looked up to when we were kids. That never happens. We never become adults. We never truly lose that kid. We just remain who we are and the world changes around us and through us. Because we’re always at it we just never realize. Every day we live is shorter than the last, each day less of our lived experience than the last. Then the days melt until the ice cream of life is gone.

Don’t waste life and don’t wait for it. Things will just happen. One day you look in the mirror and you see the person you wanted to be and you’re so confused because it doesn’t really make sense because you never changed. The funniest part about achieving your dreams in that moment is now you strive to be someone else. The world changed around you and you changed with it. Eventually you realize everyone’s full of shit and making it up as much as you are. That sprinting on the hedonic treadmill never moves you forward. Better to just accept that now. Play life as that most important game it always was. Take every day as a gift. Do not take yourself too seriously and remember that each and every moment is the best thing you will ever be given. When you live like that, time doesn’t matter. Nothing matters because you have answered the only true question you will ever be asked.