My perception of time

[xiphias]

Lis has been after me to post about this, about a conversation we had about a week and a half ago.

I made the comment, which she felt was interesting, that, as far as time goes, I can understand and feel only two measures of time: right now, and eternity. And I can't really understand or feel anything in between.

This makes it hard for me to plan things, since neither of those time periods is actually particularly conducive to daily life.

But, well, I can think of things as "past", and "future," and I can use a clock and a calendar to determine "fifteen minutes", "an hour", "a week", and "a year", but I have no instinctive understanding of those latter time periods. To me, ten years ago and last week feel about the same, and dinner and the grave feel approximately the same distance in the future.

This makes planning, and living, rather difficult.

Anyway, Lis thought that was interesting, and asked me to blog it. Some time in the past, which she states was a week and a half ago, but which I recall as "before now."

Comments

[pogodragon.livejournal.com]

jeremy_m refers to pretty much anything in the past as 'when I was a tiny child', which translates to 'more than about a week ago'. Anything in the future (especially if it's worrying or distressing him - things like routine eye appointments f'r instance) are percieved as the end of all things and it's not possible to plan beyond them. The phrase 'after your [insert current scary pre-occupation]...' has an entirely null value to him.

No content, but I feel your (or Lis's) pain.