56 - it's September ALREADY?!
Hey there, ! Thanks for joining me :) Also - thanks to everyone who let me know this was broken! The best engagement I got all year ;)
Melting clocks
Have you thought about time lately?
'There are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen' - Lenin
...in our case, probably months, where years are happening. Or hours? I'm not sure. It's all melted together like ice cream and fudge.
A weird thing I've found is that time is very wibbly-wobbly during this time of COVID. A lot of things are repetitive - I wake up, I get my water, I go to my desk, start up my laptop, sit there for 8 hours, maybe go for a walk during the day or after work, and then go to bed.
And yet, it's the start of September ALREADY. WHERE DID THE TIME GO?
I think when we came into second lockdown, the novelty wore off. Where's the dalgona coffee? Where's the sourdough bread?? We've adapted to a new way of life, and the hedonic treadmill means we're pretty much back to how happy we were pre-COVID. Ever think about that?
Like equilibrium, with chemistry. A change occurs, and the system tries to partially oppose that change (yes, I'm a chem tutor - why do you ask?) to try and return to the state it was at before. Your happiness adapts to the surrounding environment. You adapt, you change. Life goes on.
It is what it is.
Novelty and liminality
When I reflect on pre-COVID life, I feel like there was a lot more movement in the day that removed you from your normal surroundings that helped inject some novelty or newness into your every day. Choices and rituals that helped push you into different environments; e.g.:
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Changing your clothes helps you start your bleary-eyed trip into a new day - morning rituals help your mind and body understand 'hey, we're starting the day again!'
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Getting on a bus or a train was your daily trek to and from work - this liminal moment helping to ease the transition from home to work (for me, often sleeping through liminality...)
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Going into work and seeing a different set of people than you would at home puts you in a different state of mind - one which is geared towards work.
Each of these chunks of time made it so that you had more specific intervals to experience, and you seem to fit in more...things.
When you're at home, because the day bleeds through in the same areas, the same room, the same chair, the same habits...it gets repetitive, and time seems to lengthen, yet feel so short.
Again, it's SEPTEMBER?! Where did the time go!!
The hurricane of experience
One thing I realised, was that often when you had done more concrete things in a day, it feels long, because you're experiencing so much at a time.
However, when you're binging a tv series, or mindlessly doomscrolling, the day feels short - as if you've wasted a day's worth of time.
I'm sure it's got to do with something like...your mind having to encode more new experiences and therefore processing a lot more memories than it's used to which makes time feel subjectively longer. Easily consumed media flows through the mind like a light breeze, while the struggle of learning and experiencing new things is more akin to a hurricane.
To try to take advantage of that, I've tried to 'lengthen' my days:
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I take a digital diet on Sundays (limiting screen time as much as possible) - trying to do more physical activities (walking, reading, cleaning, yoga, cooking, baking) to make the day feel longer.
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Planning my after-work hours - being more conscious, and mindful, with the time I've got, rather than letting it slip through my fingers. This is hard because I'd rather not put so much effort into planning leisure time...but it's something I gotta do to help build a better use of time. Sometimes this is just 'relax with a movie' - but still, having it planned out makes me feel better.
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Set a bedtime mode on my phone; it turns everything on it to grayscale at 11pm, so that I know it's time for bed, and my phone becomes just a bit more boring. I used to have an app that would restrict social media apps on my phone at a pre-determined time as well! Unfortunately it got deprecated and stopped working :(
What have you been doing to put more rituals in your days? Has time changed for you too?
Chat soon :)
✔️ Real Life Recommendations
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I think I've talked about the film Yojimbo before here, but I also watched A Fistful of Dollars over the weekend (going through the IMDB Top 250), which is a remake of the same story, but just in the Wild West. It catapulted Clint Eastwood to fame, and is a great stylistic spaghetti western...but I kind of find the original is superior based on how the story is told. The editing and the cinematography of Yojimbo is better, and has more oomph, in my opinion, even though it's in black and white. Both highly recommended!
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Tools of Titans - this is an absolute tome of a book - I couldn't get through the whole thing because it was so thick and dense; full of information about what famous people did and their routines. However, I did pick and choose some people to read, and they were excellent. I will note that my personal belief is that you should always optimise for usefulness - reading them isn't enough. Take what's useful, and learn from experience. Regardless, it's still a useful reference guide to have!
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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How digital media distorts our sense of time - this long, thought-provoking piece was an inspiration for today's newsletter. It talks about a lot of things - the main takeaways for me were around the fact that everything is immortal online, and our habits / products don't reflect the ebb and flow of reality. This means that time is not very well tracked online, and plays with our perception of time. Different ideas about decaying websites, or websites that reflect the sunrise or sunset - fascinating explorations into how one might build real life into virtual life.
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I tried to live without the Tech Giants. It was impossible - a journalist tries to switch off anything related to the FAANG - Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google. It proves impossible (mainly because everything's on AWS). Interesting to see that a lot of key infrastructure online is owned by private companies, rather than like...roads that are owned by governments in real life.
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Inside the hidden world of competitive lockpicking - hey, we all go down rabbit holes right? Take a look at this one :)