As some of you know, my girlfriend (who's name shall remain hidden for reasons of intrigue and mystery. I will refer to her as "Toyomi") has been living with me for the past three months. She is not, anymore. Thankfully, this did not come about due to my inability to put down the seat, or how I never did anything but watch sports all day. Except for the Olympics, that was some fine hockey action. Ooh, and the curling. But that's neither here nor there.
The point is, that due to visa regulations and my upcoming trip to Japan to cap a career of 17 years in school with some sort of thesis right there at the end, she went home. And it got me thinking. It feels like time just flew by. This happens quite a lot, for example when you haven't studied enough for an exam which is about to start, or maybe when you spend time lying on the grass in the sunshine. But in this case, we're talking about a quarter of a year that somebody apparently just lived up, and now it's gone. This is feeling is not because "all I did was study". I have, on occasion, bemoned the fact that I had to go to school since I had a lecture that day. We've also been able to visit three Nordic capitals (points for all guesses that include Helsinki!), as well as the center of the universe, currently located in Älmhult, Småland. Population 8592. And a fair bit of more local places as well. Which means that things obviously happened. Somehow they just ended up doing it a great deal quicker than one might have thought.
I mean, if we've done all this stuff, shouldn't it feel like it's been a really long while? Thinking about it logically, this is the only conclusion. Doing stuff takes time. Ergo, doing lots of stuff takes lots of time. Right? But still, that feeling eludes me much like any deeper understanding of Laotian cinema.
Here I am, left to my own devices to come up with an answer. And it is this: It doesn't feel like "a long time" because we don't remember what happened on that Thursday afternoon eleven weeks ago, but rather because we do remember it, as well as what happened the next week, and the one after that. If we didn't, there would be nothing to compare it to. Everything would be happening "now", because we wouldn't remember what happened before. Somewhat akin to describing the distance to Cuba in nautical miles to somebody who measures stuff in "cats". Or something.
Completely nonsensical intermission time! (And no, sadly, it's not that kind of place, just a regular bar):
(If Da Pete is watching, I was looking through old... stuff, and found this, along with perennial favorite "Thanks, 40th Anniversary! Dynamic Performance of Mission!" But exposing that to the world? I doubt we as a society are ready just yet)
So yeah, in conclusion, I cannot tell you if the glass is half-empty. Or, indeed, if it is half-full. Only that you remember that it is there, and it's up to you to fill it up with stuff. Prefereably big, bulky home electronics. I like that. Better get me one of them thar American-size glasses, then.
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If you found this post a little stranger than average (even for me), you're probably right, so I'll give you this to think about: Going home from the airport yesterday, I had apparently booked my return ticket in the wrong direction. 17 years of Swedish education: 1 - Rest of World: 0. Just to show you that I'll be back on form next time; you can take that to the bank. (Which would probably result in a lot of strange stares and awkward conversations, but that does not detract from the fact that you could take it to the bank.)
4 comments:
Har du last Microserfs av Douglas Coupland? Det ar en valdans bra bok och det har ar ett utdrag jag tycker valdigt bra om:
”You know how when somebody says, Remember that party at the beach last year?’ and you say, ’Oh God, was that last year? It feels like last month’? If I’m going to live a year, I want my whole year’s worth of year. I don’t want it feeling like only one month. Everything I do is an attempt to make time ’feel’ like time again - to make it feel longer. I get my time in bulk.”
For ovrigt har jag pa senare tid borjat lagga till "40th anniversary - dynamic performance of mission" nar jag sager "Thanks" till Rachel. Kan du posta bilden nanstans? Min ar hemma i Sverige. Good times, good times.
...& jag rakade sudda en apostrof innan Remember...
Indeed, I have not. Men den åker upp på listan (och ja, det finns en fysisk lista!). Hoppas få lite kvalitetstid i läsfåtöljen när tentorna är avklarade. Eller kanske i solen, men det kan vara att hoppas för mycket.
Och: nu när jag har den andra huvudrollsinnehavarens tillstånd så kan du räkna med att 40th anniversary också kommer att glädja telerymden inom en (ganska) snar framtid!
Jag vantar med spanning!
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