“Sure, everything is ending," Jules said, "but not yet.”
April 19, 2022 7:55 AM Subscribe
How do we measure our time?
Is it more useful to think in how many minutes are left in the day?
Do you start counting down to the weekend on Monday? What if that wasn't really an option?
Or maybe you like to think seasonally. But which seasons? These?* Or these?** Or These?
Or maybe you should just savor how many weeks are probably left in your lifetime.
Or maybe time will be different if you choose a different calendar. Or maybe this one. Or this one. Or pick and choose depending on your mood today (or this year).
* There is a beautiful app for this
**Having lived in this area, these feel very appropriate.
Do you start counting down to the weekend on Monday? What if that wasn't really an option?
Or maybe you like to think seasonally. But which seasons? These?* Or these?** Or These?
Or maybe you should just savor how many weeks are probably left in your lifetime.
Or maybe time will be different if you choose a different calendar. Or maybe this one. Or this one. Or pick and choose depending on your mood today (or this year).
* There is a beautiful app for this
**Having lived in this area, these feel very appropriate.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- loup
Instead of asking him how much of your time is left?
Ask him how much of your mind, baby
'Cause in this life things are much harder than in the afterworld
This life you're on your own!
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:52 AM on April 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
Ask him how much of your mind, baby
'Cause in this life things are much harder than in the afterworld
This life you're on your own!
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:52 AM on April 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
I've set a target retirement date of 12/28/2029 so with some math in Excel can see I'm hitting the exact midpoint of my present and last (?) job (measured by workdays - PTO) next week : )
It's all downhill from here, baby.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:11 AM on April 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
It's all downhill from here, baby.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:11 AM on April 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
Also, 10,000-day chunks of life are a good measure too. Just went into my 3rd 10,000-day allotment this year. It'll be my last most likely.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:13 AM on April 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:13 AM on April 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
I am tubing down the Delaware River circa 1980 when I float up next to a friend. Mind you we had been drinking and smoking most of the day. I asked him if he knew what time it was. He responded, "No man. You want to reach a point where time does not matter. I am there. You need to get there." He was right you know. Still seeking time enlightenment.
As for the last time I was sitting in my chair trying to stay awake to the Three Stooges, it has been 2 days and 20 hours.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 9:49 AM on April 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
As for the last time I was sitting in my chair trying to stay awake to the Three Stooges, it has been 2 days and 20 hours.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 9:49 AM on April 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
I know how time should be reckoned, and intend to remain permanently annoyed about humanity's collective failure to do it that way until everybody else in the world comes around to my way of thinking. Which all of you totally should, you know, just do anyway and by no means only about time.
Fuck, imagine the whole world thinking just like me. We'd all get on with each other incredibly well until we just up and died, simultaneously, from doing the stupidest thing imaginable (I may or may not have needed rescuing by one of my excellent neighbours after badly botching a bush track creek crossing, far enough out of phone range to need a decent walk to find signal, earlier this evening).
posted by flabdablet at 10:08 AM on April 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Fuck, imagine the whole world thinking just like me. We'd all get on with each other incredibly well until we just up and died, simultaneously, from doing the stupidest thing imaginable (I may or may not have needed rescuing by one of my excellent neighbours after badly botching a bush track creek crossing, far enough out of phone range to need a decent walk to find signal, earlier this evening).
posted by flabdablet at 10:08 AM on April 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
it's great to try and get out of time whether you do that with copious substances and taking a float down a river, but it also feels like a story and the story of how you escaped time for a spell, well that story ends.
for better or worse, time and how we experience it appears to be part of what makes us
there are days I'm aware of time purely as a measure of the dogs and cats I've shared time with.. we're like each other's gods and we just worship a little differently, and one of us sees the other come to an end
posted by elkevelvet at 10:33 AM on April 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
for better or worse, time and how we experience it appears to be part of what makes us
there are days I'm aware of time purely as a measure of the dogs and cats I've shared time with.. we're like each other's gods and we just worship a little differently, and one of us sees the other come to an end
posted by elkevelvet at 10:33 AM on April 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
copious substances and taking a float down a river
If you're going that route, learn from my mistakes. Do not spend all morning getting baked, then equip yourselves only with boogie boards, water bottles and underpants, then attempt to float around The Loop starting far too late in the afternoon to make it all the way to your intended exit point.
If you do, there's a good chance you'll be out of the river and hiking back several kilometres, barefoot and clad only in underpants, as the sun goes down and the sandflies come out.
Every square inch of exposed skin, plus some that wasn't exposed. Every. Square. Inch.
We both ended up looking as if we'd been steam-cooked quickly and extremely nastily, and it took a week for the itching to lessen to non-insanity-inducing proportions despite many bottles of calamine lotion and maximal safe doses of antihistamines. Sandflies have no respect for the spirit of spontaneous adventure.
posted by flabdablet at 11:01 AM on April 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
If you're going that route, learn from my mistakes. Do not spend all morning getting baked, then equip yourselves only with boogie boards, water bottles and underpants, then attempt to float around The Loop starting far too late in the afternoon to make it all the way to your intended exit point.
If you do, there's a good chance you'll be out of the river and hiking back several kilometres, barefoot and clad only in underpants, as the sun goes down and the sandflies come out.
Every square inch of exposed skin, plus some that wasn't exposed. Every. Square. Inch.
We both ended up looking as if we'd been steam-cooked quickly and extremely nastily, and it took a week for the itching to lessen to non-insanity-inducing proportions despite many bottles of calamine lotion and maximal safe doses of antihistamines. Sandflies have no respect for the spirit of spontaneous adventure.
posted by flabdablet at 11:01 AM on April 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
In order to experience time not mattering, one must also experience time mattering.
Incidentally, I'll be changing my username to woo guru...at some point in the "future"...
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:10 AM on April 19, 2022
Incidentally, I'll be changing my username to woo guru...at some point in the "future"...
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:10 AM on April 19, 2022
I'm pretty tired of wishing my life away every workday. "Only six more hours to endure of this effing day....only three more hours," etc.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:17 AM on April 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:17 AM on April 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
Time evolves, but in the most basic sense, it doesn’t exist. At best, we (humans) throw numbers in the air and pretend they are real. I move through time by episodes; my significant increments can be seen as decades.
My high-school sweetheart and I counted moons, commemorating specific and highly significant passages we believed we had invented.
[Break]
In the army, we counted backward using “Short-Time” calendars, as in “364 days and a wake-up.” Then, we crossed off each day until DEROS or ETS. (It’s a soldier’s thing, but maybe others know.)
I worked three years on rotating shifts in another military job, five days on days, five days on mids, then five days on the graveyard shift. Added to that particular mix, we used Zulu time. I had a device that logged events by the nanosecond. A digital clock above by station moved time second by second. Sometimes I gazed at it to synchronize my heartbeat. I could close my eyes for a whole minute and predict the flashing number I would see when I opened them.
[Break]
We logged our Truck Time from the west coast dispatcher’s clock. Dock reservations on the east coast always had to be translated.
[Break]
Six to eight months per season belonged to the high country of the central Sierra-Nevada mountains. Ten-to-fifteen-day blocks, where time began a week after each new moon. Early moons provided me with light that helped me, my mare, and Jasper the Flying Mule to encamp after a long day on steep trails. Winter was when time stood still.
[Break Break]
I haven’t counted time by Fridays since high-school.
Please let me suggest a fun experiment for the doodlers out there.
Use your favorite text editor to draw a 10 X 10 grid square. Square one (upper left) is the year you were born. Square 100 (bottom right) is the year One-hundred. Shade in the squares until you get to the present year.
Done? This would be a reverse Short-Timer’s calendar, one with a surprise ending. For funzies you can identify the significant squares in your timeline. Or maybe it's time to break out your recreational tools and just look out your back door at all the little animals.
posted by mule98J at 11:19 AM on April 19, 2022 [8 favorites]
My high-school sweetheart and I counted moons, commemorating specific and highly significant passages we believed we had invented.
[Break]
In the army, we counted backward using “Short-Time” calendars, as in “364 days and a wake-up.” Then, we crossed off each day until DEROS or ETS. (It’s a soldier’s thing, but maybe others know.)
I worked three years on rotating shifts in another military job, five days on days, five days on mids, then five days on the graveyard shift. Added to that particular mix, we used Zulu time. I had a device that logged events by the nanosecond. A digital clock above by station moved time second by second. Sometimes I gazed at it to synchronize my heartbeat. I could close my eyes for a whole minute and predict the flashing number I would see when I opened them.
[Break]
We logged our Truck Time from the west coast dispatcher’s clock. Dock reservations on the east coast always had to be translated.
[Break]
Six to eight months per season belonged to the high country of the central Sierra-Nevada mountains. Ten-to-fifteen-day blocks, where time began a week after each new moon. Early moons provided me with light that helped me, my mare, and Jasper the Flying Mule to encamp after a long day on steep trails. Winter was when time stood still.
[Break Break]
I haven’t counted time by Fridays since high-school.
Please let me suggest a fun experiment for the doodlers out there.
Use your favorite text editor to draw a 10 X 10 grid square. Square one (upper left) is the year you were born. Square 100 (bottom right) is the year One-hundred. Shade in the squares until you get to the present year.
Done? This would be a reverse Short-Timer’s calendar, one with a surprise ending. For funzies you can identify the significant squares in your timeline. Or maybe it's time to break out your recreational tools and just look out your back door at all the little animals.
posted by mule98J at 11:19 AM on April 19, 2022 [8 favorites]
The rectangles link reminds me of Wait but Why: The Tail End (that Rhaomi posted here on Metafilter).
posted by meowzilla at 11:28 AM on April 19, 2022 [7 favorites]
Instead of measuring your life in units of time, you can measure it in activities or events. [...]I thought about it a lot for a month.
When you look at that reality, you realize that despite not being at the end of your life, you may very well be nearing the end of your time with some of the most important people in your life. If I lay out the total days I’ll ever spend with each of my parents—assuming I’m as lucky as can be—this becomes starkly clear:
It turns out that when I graduated from high school, I had already used up 93% of my in-person parent time. I’m now enjoying the last 5% of that time. We’re in the tail end.
posted by meowzilla at 11:28 AM on April 19, 2022 [7 favorites]
Also, 10,000-day chunks of life are a good measure too. Just went into my 3rd 10,000-day allotment this year. It'll be my last most likely.
That made me look, and now I'm irritated that I passed day 20,000 a couple months ago without realizing it.
posted by maxwelton at 11:41 AM on April 19, 2022
That made me look, and now I'm irritated that I passed day 20,000 a couple months ago without realizing it.
posted by maxwelton at 11:41 AM on April 19, 2022
I sleep more in the winter, so you can say that more of the time I have been awake during my lifetime has been during summer hours. Also Summer has more daylight hours. So there has been more summer in my waking life than winter. Summer has formed more of the backdrop of my life.
I have also slept in late or gone to bed early much more often than I have taken an afternoon nap. So most of my waking time has also occured during the afternoon.
From all this I conclude, life is a Summer Afternoon.
posted by vacapinta at 12:10 PM on April 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
I have also slept in late or gone to bed early much more often than I have taken an afternoon nap. So most of my waking time has also occured during the afternoon.
From all this I conclude, life is a Summer Afternoon.
posted by vacapinta at 12:10 PM on April 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
Numbering the whole thing in minutes gives pause for thought.
Quite a short pause, though. Who has time for pauses as precious minutes fall like ninepins?
posted by flabdablet at 12:11 PM on April 19, 2022
Quite a short pause, though. Who has time for pauses as precious minutes fall like ninepins?
posted by flabdablet at 12:11 PM on April 19, 2022
About time...
Your perception of self, chained as it is to your constructed memories of your past and imaginings of your future, is a state vector through time. A state is your perception of a "moment"- that amount of time that you perceive as unitary, the duration of which varies with excitement and other factors. You can't escape time when you're a clock.
Because you can't escape time (but you can escape the 'tyranny' of other clocks) and can't get more of it, whenever you exchange a unit of unfungible time (each h is unique in the history of the universe) for a fungible token (money... if it's non-fungible, it's non-money) you are getting ripped off.
If you are so poor that you spend a large proportion of your life hiding in "safe" spaces from people who would harm you or rip you off further, waiting so save up enough money from your below-subsistence income to try to improve your circumstances:
a) welcome to the club, if you have questions hmu and will do and askme;
b) you are also getting ripped off in this scenario, and it is not your fault.
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 3:55 PM on April 19, 2022
Your perception of self, chained as it is to your constructed memories of your past and imaginings of your future, is a state vector through time. A state is your perception of a "moment"- that amount of time that you perceive as unitary, the duration of which varies with excitement and other factors. You can't escape time when you're a clock.
Because you can't escape time (but you can escape the 'tyranny' of other clocks) and can't get more of it, whenever you exchange a unit of unfungible time (each h is unique in the history of the universe) for a fungible token (money... if it's non-fungible, it's non-money) you are getting ripped off.
If you are so poor that you spend a large proportion of your life hiding in "safe" spaces from people who would harm you or rip you off further, waiting so save up enough money from your below-subsistence income to try to improve your circumstances:
a) welcome to the club, if you have questions hmu and will do and askme;
b) you are also getting ripped off in this scenario, and it is not your fault.
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 3:55 PM on April 19, 2022
The ten minute Rectangles page reminded me of Simone Giertz's Every Day Calendar.
posted by zenon at 5:29 PM on April 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by zenon at 5:29 PM on April 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
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