I’m
surrounded these days by reminders that the digits on the calendar are about to
change. Lists of the best of everything in 2013 and promises of what’s ahead in 2014.
Requests for year-end donations and plans for the coming year. Looking back and
looking ahead. I guess the same messages have always floated around as New
Year’s Day approached. But as the years roll by, they seem more compelling and
more confusing. I'm find balancing on the boundary a little dizzying.
For instance …
On solstice evening, we went to a wonderful party with a group of women friends.
We burned candles to bid farewell to things we’d like to release from our lives
as we finish this year and candles to welcome things we’d like to bring into
our lives instead. The sun turns in its path, finishing a cycle and beginning
another. Around the same time, I learned that two people in my life, two of my
age peers, are very ill. One is seeing her last new year, and the other may
well be. And then I heard my partner’s grandson, about to turn 12, talk about
something he did “a long time ago,” even as his journey has just begun. Almost surely, this transition is experienced by my two peers
as the close of a year, hopefully one laced with good memories. And it is just
as likely experienced by this boy as a step forward into new adventures.
The
yin and yang of time. The edge of the year.
So
what, I ask myself, is it to me? I know the “right” answer: it is what I make
of it. But my experience of this edge feels more complex than that. I
understand that I’m responsible for what I create of this year, within the
limits that reality imposes. And I also know that reality does impose
limits. Among these is the fact that as I grow older (which, by the
way, we all do), the years ahead look different—as do the years behind.
You’ve
probably heard it plenty, especially from old folks:
time passes faster as we age. In fact, anyone of a certain age is likely to be
thinking it right about now: I can’t believe how fast this year
passed! Well, it seems that there is considerable evidence that this is
true—i.e., that the older we get, the faster time seems to move. That applies
to individual hours, and it definitely applies to whole years. Two questions
come to mind: (1) Why? and (2) So what?
As
for why … some folks argue that it’s because we have fewer novel experiences,
and novel experiences are intrinsically more memorable than familiar ones. The early-20th century
philosopher/psychologist (who was also, by the way, a brilliant writer), said it well:
"In youth we may
have an absolutely new experience, subjective or objective, every hour of the
day… Each passing year converts some
of this experience into automatic routine which we hardly note at all, the days
and the weeks smooth themselves out in recollection to contentless units, and
the years grow hollow and collapse.”
Recent neurological research seems to bear him out–although
it does so far less poetically than William James. During childhood, it seems,
we devote a lot of attention, which translates to a lot of neurological effort, to understanding and
mastering the simplest bits of information, the most basic skills—more by far
than we now remember having invested. But by adulthood, the brain has adapted
to so many sorts of input, has learned to process so many things automatically,
that events do in fact flow by without our noticing them. They become James’
“contentless units,” and the years collapse into one another as we look back
through the telescope of time.
Another explanation is simply that each day, week, year is a
smaller part of our total life’s experience, so of course it seems shorter, if
only in relation to the whole. After all, one day to an 11-year-old would be
approximately 1/4,000 of her life, while one day to a 66-year-old would be
approximately 1/24,000 of hers. So it makes sense that a day—or a week or a
year—would seem much longer to an 11-year old than to a 66-year old. Who hasn’t
heard a pre-teen say something like, “Back when I was a kid …” Point made.
Turning the telescope around, focusing forward rather than backward, other
folks argue that time seems to move so fast because we have fewer and fewer
years ahead. Seen in this way, the years ahead seem so very precious. Of course
each one seems to disappear faster—like coins to a poor person who has few
versus a rich person who can’t imagine the end of wealth.
So, in the swirl of endings and beginnings, I’ve been
thinking about this. This transition, this edge—is it an ending, the close of
a year … or a beginning, the opening of one? Of course it’s both. But I mean
psychologically, for me, which is it? Or, perhaps more to the
point, which will it be?
First, I agree wholeheartedly with James’ suggestion that
having new experiences and learning new things make the years richer and give
them memorable content. I’ve learned that lesson (unfortunately, over and over)
in my own life. Novel experiences create memories, and memories give a year an
identity of sorts: “2013: the year when I did a weeklong astrophysics course,
when I climbed Storm King Mountain,” etc. And when years have an identity, they
don’t “grow hollow and collapse” on one another.
But I’m not sure that this phenomenon—as noteworthy and
psychologically important as it is—explains why the present moment or the years ahead seem
so short. That part of time’s collapse needs, for me, an additional explanation.
And here, I think, the “fewer years ahead” interpretation fits. When I look at
my parents’ life spans—both of them died of so-called natural causes—and
consider that mine is likely to be roughly similar (fantasies to the contrary
notwithstanding), I can make a rough guess about the time I have ahead. And
then, if I count backward that many years, I’m stunned by how recent it seems.
That many years ago, I was doing x and y—but those
things seem so recent! Is that really all the time I have left?
And here rests the challenge, the "so what?"—at least for me. Because if
that’s all the time I have left, I had better make it time worth living, within
the limitations imposed by reality. Yet, my penchant is to coast, to slip into
comfortable routines, as I did with such ease when the time ahead seemed
endless. So, I ask myself, if I woke up tomorrow to the news that my time was
up, would I be content with my life as I’m living it today? I’m not
talking about creating a bucket list here. I’ve written before about the
concerns I have about bucket lists. I’m not talking about fantasies I want to
realize some day. I’m talking about reality, today. Am I spending this day in a way
that would make me content if it were my last?
Let me take stock: my partner and I made plans last night to
spend time with old friends from San Francisco later this week, and I’m looking
forward to that. This morning, I’m wrapping up arrangements for an interview
for my radio show next week, which is exciting. I took today off
from my editing work, a gift to myself of a leisurely day, which gives me great
(rare) pleasure. I’m writing this blog, which is always huge fun for me. I’ll
run some errands. (OK, yuk. Necessary life maintenance. I can feel fine about
that, if not excited.) I’ll take a walk in the beautiful Colorado sunshine. If I
have time, I’ll work on another blog. This evening, I’ll join the other folks
in our KGNU collective to do a show on queer events of the past year …
and maybe look forward to next year a bit. (There it is again, that old
year—new year thing.) OK, would that feel fine as my last day? Yes. And now,
can I say that every day … OK, most days (granting reality the right to
intrude)?
Because,
now that I think about it, we don’t have years—old ones or new ones. We have
days, minutes. The only thing that demarcates Wednesday from Tuesday will be
the date, the digits on the calendar. There’s nothing magical there. It’s just
a day, a date. We may invoke it as a moment for review and anticipation, but we
could review and anticipate any day. And as the days grow
fewer (as they do for all of us), it seems like we might want to pay attention
to each one while we can.
I
think I’ll go take that walk.
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