Is life really ‘short’? Some thoughts on our perception of time

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Short lives counted in Days by Death Clocks

Is life really short?

I recently heard about a feature on a podcast. The feature was a Death Clock extension to one’s browser. Essentially, this is just a clock counting down to the date I may die. In my case, it was showing just over 16,000 days. I’m fine with that, I could get a lot done in that amount of time. Sounds great, even if it is a bit morbid.

The instant I saw the quote accompanying the extension in its tab, I removed it. It read simply;

‘Life is short. Make the most of it.’

Yes, we all have a biologic clock. Our days are in a sense numbered. But, suppose I don’t last even the amount of time the Death Clock gave me? Still, my own sense of time passing leaves me feeling that life is far from short.

How do you feel about your own time?

This really is a question of perspective.

Consider the following. Reflect deeply on your childhood. Actually take yourself back to being there. See it from the perspective of the 5-year-old or 10-year-old you. Back then, life probably felt like it would last a long time. Forever perhaps. Even if you think life is short now, has it always seemed so?

Continue your reflective journey if you will. Adolescence was not quick, was it… it may seem to have gone past in the blink of an eye from a nostalgic point in later life. But at the time? Each year was slow and long. Those lonely nights, those anxious waits. They took a long time to pass. Being a teenager is exciting. A time of adventure and intrigue, but equally full of adversity, expectation and challenge.

Let’s say you have an extra few years to add on to adolescence, or you have a number of decades. Either way, that is a lot of time spent in moments existing. If the former, the years are most likely still going slowly. If the latter, then that is large chunks of time to consider.

The fractions make it short

When you were born, the first day of your life was the entirety of your worldly existence. However, when you reached your first birthday each passing day was smaller than 1/100th of your existence. By the time you reached your fifteenth birthday, each day was an even smaller fraction.

As people age, they believe life to be shorter. Each day cycle is literally a tiny (and shrinking) portion of their entire lives. Without reading much into the literature or psychology, I have had some thoughts on how perception may be affected by our patterns of consciousness.

The Effect of Consciousness

Now, what follows is just an idea, just conjecture. I have yet to read deeply into the science underpinning the makeup of consciousness, but these ideas are my starting point.

I recently attempted to digest a few posts on John H’s interesting and insightful blog on consciousness. It occurred to me for the first time that consciousness is not like a light switch. It is not just on when we are alive and awake, and off when we are asleep or dead. It seems more appropriate to consider it as a spectrum. Moreover, a continuous spectrum all the way from totally inanimate, through to higher levels of consciousness.

If anything, I would describe my current thinking of consciousness as like a field, which emanates through a point, i.e. the mind. The strength of this emission of conscious thought relates to our level of alertness and brain activity.

It may follow that if we spend most of our time at a low level, or weakened strength type of consciousness (for whatever reason) then our lifeworld is low resolution and so time goes quickly. If our consciousness is in a heightened state, then the world opens up. As it enlarges in experience it becomes rich in detail, substance and meaning. Consequently, time is perceived as taking longer to pass. It is for the experiencer, slower.

Final Thoughts

The shortness of life is a lie, sold to people to motivate them for whatever reason. In more cynical moods, I would suggest that the ‘life is short’ mantra is a marketing technique. It has been designed and developed to make you get out there and buy a brand or buy an experience before it is too late.

For now, perhaps it has just become a kind of earned, if slightly off the mark, wisdom. It is passed down by older generations to try to stop younger people wasting their youth by making bad decisions. From a philosophical viewpoint, our mind (and consciousness itself) also plays a structuring role in our perception of time.

My conclusion is that life is not short, and one’s perspective is more important than the little snippets of advice telling you that it is.