The Elasticity of Time

Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting.        ~ Haruki Maurikami

So being on lockdown for over five weeks now I have not surprisingly been thinking a lot about traveling.  I have wanderlust while working in the best of times, right now my wanderlust is through the roof.  Particularly when I think about the fact that even once the initial emergency subsides enough for us to go back to work and start traveling a little it still may not be safe to take trips to based on the health situations in those countries.  One of the trips that’s at the very top of my list right now is a cruise to Antarctica, and I’m not thinking that a cruise is a good idea anytime soon.

So it hit me today that I’ve been off of work and sheltering in place for five weeks and four days, nearly six weeks already.  I also don’t see the likelihood of being back to anything resembling normal until June first, which means another six weeks of the same.  Honestly, this hasn’t been all that horrible for me, and another six weeks is absolutely doable, especially if us doing this saves more people’s lives.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about a lot this week, has been the fact that the last five weeks or so has gone by very quickly.  This week in particular has flown by for me, back to back to back to back Zoom meetings several days of week will do that for you.  Also, because of the lack of novelty, meaning each day is really similar to the one before and after, means that our brains file them more efficiently.  We start to lose focus on each individual day, so the days seem to very much run together.  It’s one of the reasons that when you’re doing something like this it gets pretty easy to lose track of what day it is.  Happily so far, that has only caused me to be late to one meeting because I was confused on which day it was.

This idea of the elasticity of time is something that I’ve thought about before.  You see whenever I’ve taken my years off and traveled, time seems to slow down.  Even more so, during those times when I’m doing long distance hikes.  A day traveling takes as long to go by as three days working, a day on a trail is the same as a week working.  So it’s not surprising that right now, not only working, but having really similar work days, day after day, time feels like it’s screaming by.

I don’t like it when time flies by so fast, sure it will be nice when this time is over, but we can’t get those days and hours back and do something more fun with them.  So I hope your shelter in place time is going ok, and here’s to time slowing down and allowing for happier days my friends.  ~ Rev Kane