If you could bring back one experience from your childhood...

grindy · 04-26-2019, 05:14 AM

Nothing. My childhood was okay but right now is the best time of my life.

Psy-Fi · 04-26-2019, 07:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Exo

What is this? Reddit?

My answer? Time.

Time when you were younger was a different kind of time. You wake up at maybe nine or ten. I don't know because it was a while ago but it was morning and you put on your clothes and you go eat some f*cking cereal and watch a cartoon or two and you go meet your friends in the f*cking woods and an ETERNITY passes until you see those summer street lights come on and you know you have to go home. I want to bring back the slow acting time that made Halloween last what seemed like forever after the sun went down and you got to cover the entire damn neighborhood and still have time to dig into your pillow case for the good sh*t before you went to bed. I want the slow moving molasses time that allowed for a cross town bike trip to the skate park, a full day of f*cking around, smoking pot, coming back down from being too high as a teenager (which takes a long time), and then making it home for dinner made by Mom only to go back out and get drunk in the woods.

Where's that kind of time gone? I wake up, take a sh*t, drive to work, and all of a sudden it's four PM and I'm already hoping for sleep. Being an adult is fun but you don't have the kind of time you had as a kid and I miss it f*cking terribly.

And the time only seems to go by faster the older you get. Every decade you live after your teens just seems to pass quicker than the previous one.
I often wish that I still had that childhood perception of time as an adult.

rostasi · 04-26-2019, 09:53 AM

There's a perfectly reasonable explanation of this time-dilation feeling having to do with prospective vs retrospective vantage points.
From a prospective point, time nearly always goes by quickly at all ages when you're doing fun or creative stuff.
It only appears that your younger self experienced "eternity" when you look at that time after decades gone by.
The more decades the slower it appears in retrospect because your brain is choosing from all of the earlier new
experiences it encoded in memory and not the familiar ones. As you get older, your brain is fed a smaller number
of new experiences into its memory and you end up re-living older, more novel experiences in the here-and-now
which give the impression that they lasted longer than they really did (or even than they appeared to when you
experienced them at the time). The only way around this dichotomy, is to accept that time has nearly always
appeared fast during the pleasant experiences, then and now, and that the comparisons are moot if you're
always learning and doing new, creative stuff in the here-and-now.

The Batlord · 04-26-2019, 09:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rostasi

There's a perfectly reasonable explanation of this time-dilation feeling having to do with prospective vs retrospective vantage points.
From a prospective point, time nearly always goes by quickly at all ages when you're doing fun or creative stuff.
It only appears that your younger self experienced "eternity" when you look at that time after decades gone by.
The more decades the slower it appears in retrospect because your brain is choosing from all of the earlier new
experiences it encoded in memory and not the familiar ones. As you get older, your brain is fed a smaller number
of new experiences into its memory and you end up re-living older, more novel experiences in the here-and-now
which give the impression that they lasted longer than they really did (or even than they appeared to when you
experienced them at the time). The only way around this dichotomy, is to accept that time has nearly always
appeared fast during the pleasant experiences, then and now, and that the comparisons are moot if you're
always learning and doing new, creative stuff in the here-and-now.

I don't know, years did legit feel like they passed a lot slower back in the day and I don't think it's just hindsight. Perhaps perception of time is affected by brain development or something.

rostasi · 04-26-2019, 10:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dharma & Greg

I don't know, years did legit feel like they passed a lot slower back in the day and I don't think it's just hindsight. Perhaps perception of time is affected by brain development or something.

Was growing up drudgery of some sort for you? That might've made things appear slower
(if it really did appear slower then - which could be hard to imagine in the present
by placing yourself outside of your present time).

**Frownland** · 04-26-2019, 10:05 AM

I think it's the lowering of metabolism over time affecting how quickly our brains can perceive things/how much information that they can take in and process.

The Batlord · 04-26-2019, 10:07 AM

Actually part of it was probably waiting for Halloween, waiting for Christmas, waiting for summer, and waiting for my birthday. There was just always something that felt like it was never coming that became less bothersome as I got older.

rostasi · 04-26-2019, 10:14 AM

Well, none of that appears to be fun at all - living life in constant expectation
instead of just getting out on the playground. I don't have kids (that I know of),
but you hear stories all of the time of them saying things like "Awwww, mom,
do I have to come in now?"

The Batlord · 04-26-2019, 10:22 AM

You never waited with baited breath for Christmas?

rostasi · 04-26-2019, 10:59 AM

Well, "bated" breath, yes, I may have - don't remember -
but, yes, anticipating something good will appear longer
than the actual event itself. I don't think my life was in
constant anticipation tho.

04-26-2019, 05:14 AM	#11 (permalink)
grindy . Join Date: Oct 2014 Location: . Posts: 7,201	Nothing. My childhood was okay but right now is the best time of my life. __________________ *A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.*

04-26-2019, 10:05 AM	#16 (permalink)
Frownland SOPHIE FOREVER Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: East of the Southern North American West Posts: 35,541	I think it's the lowering of metabolism over time affecting how quickly our brains can perceive things/how much information that they can take in and process. __________________ Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth. d e a f b o x

04-26-2019, 09:53 AM	#13 (permalink)
rostasi . Join Date: Aug 2012 Posts: 4,007	There's a perfectly reasonable explanation of this time-dilation feeling having to do with prospective vs retrospective vantage points. From a prospective point, time nearly always goes by quickly at all ages when you're doing fun or creative stuff. It only appears that your younger self experienced "eternity" when you look at that time after decades gone by. The more decades the slower it appears in retrospect because your brain is choosing from all of the earlier new experiences it encoded in memory and not the familiar ones. As you get older, your brain is fed a smaller number of new experiences into its memory and you end up re-living older, more novel experiences in the here-and-now which give the impression that they lasted longer than they really did (or even than they appeared to when you experienced them at the time). The only way around this dichotomy, is to accept that time has nearly always appeared fast during the pleasant experiences, then and now, and that the comparisons are moot if you're always learning and doing new, creative stuff in the here-and-now.

04-26-2019, 10:14 AM	#18 (permalink)
rostasi . Join Date: Aug 2012 Posts: 4,007	Well, none of that appears to be fun at all - living life in constant expectation instead of just getting out on the playground. I don't have kids (that I know of), but you hear stories all of the time of them saying things like "Awwww, mom, do I have to come in now?"

04-26-2019, 10:59 AM	#20 (permalink)
rostasi . Join Date: Aug 2012 Posts: 4,007	Well, "bated" breath, yes, I may have - don't remember - but, yes, anticipating something good will appear longer than the actual event itself. I don't think my life was in constant anticipation tho.