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'...Michel Siffre, a French chronobiologist (he studies the relationship between time and living organisms) who conducted one of the most extraordinary acts of self-experimentation in the history of science. In 1962, Siffre spent two months living in total isolation in a subterranean cave, without access to clock, calender or sun. Sleeping and eating only when his body told him to, he sought to discover how the natural rhythms of human life would be affected by living "beyond time."
Very quickly Siffre's memory deteriorated. In the dreary darkness, his days melded into one another and became one continuous, indistinguishable blob. Since there was nobody to talk to, and not much to do, there was nothing novel to impress itself upon his memory. There were no chronological landmarks by which he could measure the passage of time. At some point he stopped being able to remember what happened even the day before...As time began to blur, he became effectively amnesic. Soon, his sleep patterns disintegrated. Some days he'd stay awake for 36 straight hours, other days for eight - without being able to tell the difference. When the support team on the surface finally called down to him on September 14, the day his experiment was scheduled to wrap up, it was only August 20 in his journal. He thought only a month had gone by. His experience of time's passage had compressed by a factor of two.'
Sounds familiar? The feeling that an event has sort of snuck up on you when in fact it's always been the same date every year? (What? Chinese New Year over already??? or that sort of thing) It is interesting how Siffre's results have implications for us. The above passage is an excerpt from Joshua Foer's 'Moonwalking with Einstein : The Art and Science of Remembering Everything.' I first came across Joshua Foer's article in the NY Times Magazine last year regarding his attempts at training his memory for competition. The book is a more in-depth account of that experience. He does a lot of research not just on the art of memorizing but on how the brain functions and this is one of those detours.
He goes on to say 'Monotony collapses time; novelty unfold it...If you spend your life sitting in a cubicle and passing papers, one day is bound to blend unmemorably into the next - and disappear. That's why it's important to change routines regularly, and take vacations to exotic locales (agreed!) and have as many new experiences as possible. Creating new memories stretches out psychological time, and lengthens our perception of our lives.'
My wife has always laughed at my penchant for choosing the same option repeatedly - if I really like a certain dish (say curry chicken chop kon lau mee), I can eat the same dish everyday for 5 days in a week, 2 or 3 weeks in a row. She, on the other hand, will seek to add in as much variety to everyday choices. I remember before we got married, we would always eat out once a week on Sunday and what vexed me most at times was the rule that we must go to a new place every single week. I'll always suggest KFC, and say that we've tried all the restaurants in KK already and she will always suggest some obscure place I've never heard of. But she's right. She's on to something.
I've not thought of a resolution to aim for this year, but if anything, this will be it. To experience life from another perspective and as differently as I possibly can. To try anything and everything (within legal means) at least once.
Oh and to answer that question - why does time go by faster every year? It doesn't.
'Life seems to speed up as we get older because life gets less memorable as we get older.'
