Shorter Days, Faster Lives!

 

Today, the earth is apparently spinning faster than usual and the day will be 1.45 milliseconds shorter, as per the news from the astronomical world.

1.45 milliseconds – such a tiny dot in the grand scheme of time, and yet it will make some difference, I guess.

The other day I was reading Chicken Soup For The Indian Spiritual Soul, and I came across a beautiful passage – A whole day! What an unending infinity that is in childhood! Time had altogether a different dimension then, a measure that is its own. As life advances, this ‘measure’ loses its generosity, shrinks in experience, passing so rapidly. Perhaps, because by then watches and clocks begin to devour time by the micro-second, and that too insatiably.

What was it about childhood that felt so leisurely and slow-paced, like we had all the time in the world to do whatever we wanted to? The weekly holiday was only on Sundays and they were all the more precious because of this. Waking up early (because there was the whole day stretching before us), watching morning-shows with family, having leisurely breakfasts, catching up with friends, playing in the afternoons, doing homework, playing with friends in the evenings or going to the park with family, hanging out at the verandah with family after a slow dinner and finally sending off the day with happy and satisfied vibes and all set to meet the next week – there was so much that could fit in a day. There was no feeling of Sunday Blues or Monday Dread, just the satisfaction of having lived a day well.

Of course not all Sundays went perfectly. Sometimes there would be fights with friends that would mean spending the day on our own. Sometimes parents would demand that we study first and then play. It didn’t matter that the Sunday went as per plan or not. All I remember today is that there was a lot of time to do many things.

And may be, because there was always time to do anything, we never gazed at the clocks on the wall or felt the need to wear a watch. Even if we wore, it was more of a fashion-accessory, than a helpful gadget. I am glad the watches then stayed as an accessory, rather than a reminder of passing time.

What is it about the two-day weekends of the present that simply rush by and we just lament that we never realized how the weekend went by!?

And it is not just the weekend. I feel that as we grow older, the days seem to rush faster. 

It feels like yesterday that I dropped off my son to his school on his first day. I remember the tearful look on his face, the kids bawling their lungs out inside the classroom while harried teachers urged parents to vacate the premises as soon as possible. I remember his classroom that faced the ground of the school. I remember him leaning over the wall to give me a fist-bump and saying bye to me as he went inside the class. This became a daily ritual. His friends too started doing the same thing and every day I would find a group of tiny six-year olds leaning over the wall with their fists against me. I had to bump every little fist and urge the kids to get inside the class before the teacher arrived.

I pass that classroom every day while I deliver my kid’s lunch box to the school at 11 am. The class is now filled with a different set of six-year-olds. My son, now in the seventh standard, has his class on the third floor of the school building. I drop his lunch box at the ground floor where a group of helpers pick up the lunch boxes and deliver them to the respective classrooms. The helpers are the same, the ground and the classrooms are the same, but the kids keep coming and going.

I wonder whether these kids feel like there is a lot of time in the world while their parents live rushed lives. Going by the way my son takes his own sweet time to do anything, I have a feeling that may be he does feel so. I have to rush him for everything. ‘Wake up! It’s getting late for the swimming class!’; ‘Hurry up and wear your uniform, you will be late for school!’ None of my pleas or threats work on him. He does things at his own leisurely pace.

What is it about adulthood that feels so rushed!? The other day, my school mates were discussing in the group about how, they do not feel like they are in their mid-forties, and it always comes as a shock to realize it. Perhaps the mind wants to stay back in the days of leisure while the body speedily inches further in the passage of time.

Maybe it is okay to do things at leisure. Maybe it is okay to take our own sweet time to do anything. Time is rushing on; we don’t have to! Maybe, by slowing down, we will get a taste of those leisurely days of childhood, when a day was a ‘whole day!’, and there was enough time in the world to do everything that we wanted to.