8 jul 2012

time is a funny animal.

the amount of pleasure we imagine that we will experience whilst partaking in some activity is exactly inversely proportional to the amount of time said activity consumes in its arrival. a watched pot never boils, as it were.

looking forward, i can imagine time as little boxes, a calendar on a page. each day is allotted its 24hr box and in each box, i place the appropriate activities and appointments, actions and adventures. looking back, the boxes are gone, replaced by mental snapshots, snippets of emotion, odors and colors, sights. time not yet visited has volume and can be filled. spent time is flattened.

a side effect of flattening time-past is something distant can take precedence over something recent. recency is not the only -- nor even necessarily the weightiest -- factor in determining pride of place amongst memories. that glorious afternoon you spent at the zoo in september of '93 is much more prominent than a routine visit to grocery three weeks ago. as to the former, you can remember every detail from the clothes you wore to the flavour sno-cone you ate to the cacophony of the monkey cages. the latter... it's entirely possible you won't remember it at all without prompting.