The Persistence of Time

How do we measure time? It's all relative, yeah there's 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour, but a minute waiting for the bus is not the same as a minute putting your finger on a hot stove (for example). The latter feeling much longer to grit through, not to mention idiotic (examples and logic are not exclusive).
No, when I ask how you measure time, I'm definitely not talking about scientific method, I'm talking about how measured the time feels to your psyche.

 Salvador Dali understood the relative nature of time.

I've touched upon this lightly before in the blog when I didn't really have much inspiration, but thought patterns are just that, patterns and I guess I'm back on time again (with vigor). I've been reading a lot of peoples' experiences online with acceptance, emotional recovery and other similar topics in relation to time because I'm hoping to map out my own expected 'due date'. I suppose you could say my due date is whenever I want, but that's forced; forced recovery is comparable to a band-aid. Natural healing is permanent although you can expect a few scars. Enough exposition, time to get to the point.

And that point is time. Truth is, our minds control (and track) the passing of time. Time is a man-made concept used to measure durations passing through life. It's effective, but what came first, our concept of time measurement as we lived or our lives passing ignorant of time? The mind of evolved human beings has tracked time since the earliest stages of history. It's part of a coping mechanism we've developed although we're not sure why. We've perfected the calender, we know there's 24 hours in earth's rotation, and our tracking of time allows us to make goals; does this mean it's the same to us all? Definitely not.

I'm having a shit week, everyday passes slower than molasses on a glacier. You're having an amazing week, everyday shoots by faster than lightning on speed. Yet seven days have passed for both of us, 168 hours, etc. So what's different; our minds perceived the passing of time very differently because of what our psyche was being put through. Pain of any kind, distress, confusion, routine and many more contribute to slowing time down in our minds as we observe the passing of time, but the truth is there are no set rules to follow here (even as I do my best to understand them). Excitement may cause anticipation which in turn slows time.

You better identify...it's a cat!

The real clincher here is that if the passing of time is controlled by our mind's perception then the more we think about the passing of time, the slower it seems. So people who tend to think more about time and it's passing will in fact experience time at a different pace than those who don't. People who are oblivious to time are actually involved in an incredibly crude form of time travel; Doctor Who eat your heart out. My friend and yours, Albert Einstein had this to say about time.

"...for us physicists believe the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one." - Albert Einstein 

So when we wonder how long it will take for a process in our minds to take hold, we are asking the wrong question. We shouldn't wonder when we will move on, when we will heal, when we will be at peace. People will give us advice, they'll give us durations from personal experience and these are guidelines and awkward ones at that. The questions we should be asking start with "if," "how," and "why" because "when" is relative, fluid and changing every moment we ponder it.

The amazing thing about people is that no one thinks the same. We may come to some common ground on topics, but no one's minds are completely in sync and it's therefore impossible to assume things like time are uniformly the same for everyone. A month for me is not a month for you, a year for me is not a year for you.

The fabric of time does not fit us all in the same way, for some of us it chafes.