Why time begins to pass more quickly as you age
There is underlying mathematics to this
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Monday was back-to-school day in the Maryland county where I live. My office window faces a side street that leads to the local elementary school. Every year at this moment I observe young parents walking little kids to the first day of school, the kids wearing backpacks big enough for a spacewalk. The kids look happy and excited. The parents look terrified.
Parents worry about kids, of course. They’ll keep worrying for many years to come, even if a child’s life goes well.
Jesus said, “Which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest?” But people worry. It’s how we are built. Worrying helped our ancestors survive.
The annual march of young parents and little kids past the window says summer is ending. Labor Day is upon us. The season of swimming pools, warm evenings and lakeside leisure concludes: back to school, off to college, work gets busier as life accelerates toward the year-ending holidays.
Probably Halloween candy is already on display at the Walmart. Christmas decorations are not far off. Reader Antonio Duran reports that mince pie, the traditional British Christmas-season dish, was on sale in a London supermarket on August 27.
In a couple weeks the All Predictions Wrong annual Ode to Autumn will run, as the equinox occurs in North America. For today, the ode is to life speeding up.
There are two kinds – the annual acceleration of the calendar that begins at Labor Day, as lazy summer yields to full-speed-ahead, and the personal acceleration of time that comes as we age.
As autumn arrives events switch to high gear, especially for anyone attending school or college, continuing to gather momentum till the holidays, most hectic phase of the year.
As aging arrives, times itself begins to fly.
Year at a Glance by Roz Chast. Image courtesy the New Yorker.
Nearby is the Greatest Cartoon in Human History, by my favorite visual humorist, Roz Chast. She’s a staff cartoonist for the New Yorker, home of classy cartoons. Her Year at a Glance depicts how the months advance from glacially-slow January to flies-by December.
Now a digression -- you knew that was coming! – triggered by the wonderful Roz Chast.
Chast is the sole cartoonist currently a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is eminently qualified, but should be joined by others, as cartooning is a form of American folk art.
Founded in 1780 by John Hancock and James Bowdoin, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2030 celebrates its 250th anniversary.
Many of the nation’s Framers were members. Artists, scientists, historians, writers, presidents and secretaries of State have been fellows. You can’t join, you must be tapped. I will not miss this opportunity to boast that your writer was elected one full year ahead of Barack Obama!
Other than my wedding day and the births of our children, being elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences was the thrill of my life. The cherry on the sundae: alphabetically I am listed between my brother Frank and Clint Eastwood!
Recent Academy reports include this one advocating term limits for Supreme Court justices. Class of ’24 fellows include the psychologist Megan Bang, the journalist Jamelle Bouie, the evolutionary biologist Judith Bronstein, the actor George Clooney, the violinist Vijay Gupta and the diplomat Deborah Lipstadt.
Learned societies were part of the fabric of the American founding. The 1800 presidential election pitted the leader of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences against the leader of the American Philosophical Society -- Thomas Jefferson versus John Adams.
Say what you will about the Framers, today there is no great nation where top politicians are active in learned societies.
About a century ago, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences was well-known, its policy statements and research findings quoted by orators and editorialists. The organization that awards the Oscars, founded 1927, chose the name Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences so as to sound like the revered Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Today everyone is aware of the Oscars, few follow the latest elections to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Why this change? Because Hollywood did such a fabulous job of dumbing down culture.
Perhaps the coming 250th anniversary will offer the Academy the public eye. And maybe the Academy will select another cartoonist! Gary Larson comes to mind, as does Matt Groening. Nearby, from Larson, is When Dogs Go to Work, the Second Greatest Cartoon in Human History.
CORRECTION: As published this essay said Roz Chast was the only current fellow of the Academy who is a cartoonist. Several other fellows have corrected me! Garretson “Garry” Trudeau, best known for Doonesbury, also is a fellow.
That concludes the digression. Now to the topic: the acceleration of time.
When Dogs Go to Work by Gary Larson. Image courtesy McMeel Syndication.
Many people remark that as they get older, perception of time seems to change.
In youth the school day is eternal, summer camp lasts a lifetime, the seasons drag on, anticipated events are distant. Around middle age, time begins to speed up. Didn’t we just go home for Thanksgiving a couple months ago? Once the senior years begin, snap your fingers and summer is over.
There exists an underlying math to these perceptions.
Take a 10-year-old American male from my birth year. Actuarial tables say a boy from this cohort at this age will live an additional 64 years, which makes a year 1.5 percent of the boy’s remaining existence.
Current age is the key to lifespan projections. Because women generally live longer than men, the tables grant them more expected years.
The boy has grown to age 40. The actuarial tables now say he should live an additional 37 years. That makes one year 3 percent of his expected remaining existence. Time has begun to move twice as fast as in youth.
The boy becomes a senior citizen of age 70. Having reached 70, he is odds-on to attain 84 before dying. That makes a year 7 percent of his remaining existence.
Seven divided by 1.5 says that in aging he feels time advancing about five times as fast as in youth.
Today there are 62 million Americans of Social Security age. That’s a lot of people experiencing time acceleration.
Mince pies on sale in London in August. Photo by Antonio Duran.
Once time begins to speed up, it never slows down again. Aging is a one-way street headed toward the bridge that all must cross.
A coming essay will ask whether we should rage against death, as Dylan Thomas advised, or feel serene at the last, as is said of the saints.
That’s too heavy a topic for today. Back-to-school is happy moment. Soon leaves will be falling, cool breezes arriving, plastic-clad players will be slamming into each other at high school games across our great nation – and everybody looks better in sweaters!
But the inevitable approach of death makes me think I know why the young parents marching kids to first day of school appear unsettled. The event tells them the clocks of their own lives have begun to count down. Young parents have their first awareness of time accelerating. This is one of the many bittersweet aspects of parenthood.
I used up some of my remaining span of life writing this essay. Hope you found reading these words worthwhile. For me the time went by quickly.
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Interesting take. I have long viewed the math the other way around. For a ten-year-old, a year approaches 20% of his or her remembered life. By age 60, a year drops below 2% of remembered life. Each progressive year is a smaller fraction of one's total perceived experience.
I kinda wish time would stop too. Don’t think you and I will get our wish