In the barrel / Pt. 1

An expanded interface with time.

The older I get, the more acutely aware I become of the passing of time - and simultaneously more curious about the nature of it.

What exactly is time?

Is it a physical force? Maybe. Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which is based in physics, suggests that the higher the gravity is, the slower time passes. Yes, I’ve seen Interstellar… “I’ve waited for years”.

But sometimes I wonder - is time passing me by, or am I passing through time?

Either way, it seems to be moving increasingly faster now than it did when I was 16 years old. Why is that, though? One observation I’ve had is that it is relative (different from than Einsteins theory) to the perceived quantity of it.

For example, consider an hourglass filled with sand. When the hourglass is initially flipped and the sand begins to funnel from the top chamber to the bottom, the sand above doesn’t really seem to be moving much. There’s a lot of it. Even if we know that the hourglass is pre-loaded with 10 minutes worth of sand, it doesn’t seem to move that fast.

However, as time goes by and the relative quantity of sand decreases in the upper chamber, we can start to notice the change - both through observing the dropping level / funneling action taking place in the upper chamber and through the growing pile in the bottom. Then, in the final 60 seconds or so, it’s apparent speed really accelerates - swirling and slipping away until in an instant it’s gone.

The allegory here is that the perceived sand in one’s proverbial hourglass dictates the rate at which time seems to pass. In our youth, there’s plenty of sand and therefor relative speed of life is slow. So much ahead, scarcity is not really on the mind. But as we get older, it speeds up. Soon, days fly by.

We can almost unconsciously draw the allusion that the top chamber filled with sand is representative of our lifetime, and our time is running out to the bottom, which is the past. Once it’s all funneled, we’re done. I realize, however, that this creates the perception that time is something we have and cumulatively lose.

But what if we looked at it another way? What if instead we subscribed to the thought that our life is the bottom chamber, and instead of losing time, we’re accumulating time, or moments of it, up to a point in which our capacity has been reached?

The former suggests an impending loss - while the latter illustrates receiving.

One is a scarcity mindset, while the other is abundance.

In either way, it’s worth considering the focus point. Instead of monitoring the sand in either chamber - representative of past and future - what if we focused on the choke? This is the point where we can extract the small grains, or moments, from the greater piles and see them ( i.e. experience them) as they go by. Perhaps the choke could be called the experiential interface. I’ll also just call it the present.

A place where we can actually and metaphorically become more granular.

A quick search in the thesaurus for synonyms to granular suggests gritty, unrefined, or rugged.

This leads me to consider the implications of moments, as grains of sand, and the speed at which they pass through the hourglass in a rugged state versus a polished, refined state. For example, if the same volume of “time” was in the hourglass but instead of granular sand it was polished beads - wouldn’t it slip through the choke faster? Even more, what if it was liquid?

So, this begs the question - what is the goal? To accumulate or to experience? To build the pile, or to enjoy the passing of the sand? On one hand, some may argue that to make the most out of your time you should be as productive as possible. Speed. Efficiency. The measure of success being how much you did, saw, consumed, acquired. But is that really what’s best?

What about depth. What about quality. Getting more granular.

We each have the liberty to decide for ourselves, but for me it’s an easy answer. At this point in my life I want things to slow down and I want to really be in the moments I have - so allegorically rugged and unrefined is my preference.

This is probably why I prefer to drive a mid-90’s diesel truck.

This is also, ultimately, why I chose a wood-burning sauna over the easier, more streamlined electric-heated counterpart.