Time Elastic

I have been thinking about the speed by which time passes for me lately. It's prompted by reconnecting with friends after years of neglecting familiar ties. Some of those friendships were made with only a couple of years of actual contact and yet in mining the memory bank seem like they were a far greater part of my adolescence. I wonder if it's the power or impact of shared experiences or is it a sentimentality for a certain time period that make these friendships more vivid.

There are plenty of theories about time passing quicker as you age. That it's an actual physiological change in the brain's perception of time. It's seems rather obvious that as the end approaches time seems a high speed train out of control. What I have trouble understanding is how when I reflect on the distant past there seems a stretching out of time. That a couple of years seem like all of my childhood. When I put myself back in the moment I do remember the "clock watching effect", that impatience for the freedom to be doing something else, that seemed to stretch time. But I also remember the times that the clock ran out before I was done having fun.

I subscribe to the ideal of living in the moment. Savoring every minute of the day so at the end I'm not left with the "where did all the time go?" feeling. Recollecting the past would seem a discarding of that ideal and yet I find a similar zen in going back as I do in being here. That reminding myself of where I've been helps me focus on where I am.

Thinking about the past is...safer? Healthier than the future. The future is uncontrollable. Cause for worry. Uncertain.