Does anyone else find the passage of time really odd and confusing? What year does it feel like to you really?

[Timeandspaceidiocy]

Five years ago in one way sounds like not that much but also like a solid block of time, but in reality was 2018 which doesn't seem that long ago. Then I think of covid and suddenly 2018 does seem like a different era completely. But still, not like a long ago time.

Then if I think say back to the Olympics in 2012 - that's obviously over a decade ago now - well in 2012, 2007 seemed fucking ages and ages ago then. Even though there's only 5 years between 2007 and 2012, the same as there is between 2018 and 2023.

2012 itself feels like ages and ages and ages ago to me. 2007 seems almost like a different period in human history.

But. It also kinda feels like we "should" maybe be at say 2009 or 2010 by now. My brain can't fully compute it's 2023. I don't feel it was that long ago since I was at uni.

I'm in my late thirties so fully suspect this is one of the side effects of not being a spring chicken anymore

But does anyone else feel like this?

How do you feel about time passing?

Looking back does it all make sense chronologically to you or seem weird and like it jumps around?

Covid fucked up my sense of time.
I feel like it’s 2018 and my children should be 4 and 2, not 5 and 7.
Although my children were 3 and 1 in 2018, so that doesn’t even make sense!

It feels like about a century since 2019. I can’t believe we’ve got another year of this government to put up with.

This is a fabulous thread @Timeandspaceidiocy

I get you @Timeandspaceidiocy

Me and DH met in 1988, and that was 35 years ago... It blows my mind that 35 before the year we met, it was 1953. Just 8 years after the second world war! And we are only in our late 50s now.

I also do this thinking '1993 was 20 years ago' thing too, completely omitting a decade!! I asked my DC (both mid to late 20s/born mid 1990s,) if they feel this/experience this.

DD said she doesn't (as she wasn't born til the mid 1990s,) but she does get knocked sideways when she realises (for example) that 'Cry Me A River' by Justin Timberlake and 'Sk8er boi' by Avril Lavigne were out TWENTY ONE years ago. She said it feels like about 12 years. I feel the same. Can't believe those 2 songs were out 21 years ago!

I don't recall ever feeling anything like this til my mid 30s/the 21st century. Odd.

Oh also, I heard this week that Holiday by Madonna was out FORTY YEARS AGO!!! Just so odd, as once again, 40 years before that, we were in the middle of the second world war. ARGH!!!! 😬

So true. Covid really stole a chunk of time.Mine were 7,10,14 and now ones nearly an adult and even my younger 2 have boobs and periods 😭

I was watching When Harry Met Sally the other night…one of my favourite films watched it loads over the years but not seen for a while. There’s a scene where she bemoans becoming 40…in 6 years.
I can remember watching that. probably early 20’s thinking Christ imagine being 40!
Now I’m 15 years older than 40.
I mean …where the hell did that time go!

It's a weird feeling getting older knowing you have less time ahead than you've had.
Time is priceless we all have to make the most if it as it's over in the blink of an eye.
You look back on the years and think how did that happen.

I am also at the fact that eleven years before the 21st century, it was the 1980s! Coz the 21st century seems soooo modern and current, and the 1980s is ages ago and retro! 😆

This is a really interesting thread….. I do think technology has something to do with it, especially the 24/7 nature of it.

I’m 54 but I like to think I’m fairly up to date with films and celebrities etc but every so often it seems that famous people just pop up out of nowhere….. I mean, when did people like Bill Gates, Zuckerberg and Elon Musk suddenly appear to be the centre of the Universe?

And I totally agree with the PP who referenced how you used to be able to identify each decade reasonably clearly but since 2000 it has seemed like one big melting pot of everything….

I remember my Nana telling me about her war time experiences and it seemed relatively recent in the 70s and 80s….now it seems like ancient history….. probably not explaining that one very well but I know what I mean lol …

I saw a meme about how in the 60s everyone was into vinyl, then it went through 8 tracks, cassettes, CDs, MP3s and now vinyl is all the rage again….. it’s all very weird …..

Strange and interesting times eh? Especially when we’re at a point where we’re plugged in pretty much all the time to information and these days we can’t even tell how much of it is true…..

I find the concept of the Mandela Effect very fascinating - I absolutely agree that our memories can be faulty, but Dolly’s braces? That’s a hill I’d die on 😹

2010 to 2020 just didn’t feel like a decade, it felt like a few insipid years jammed between ‘noughties’ and ‘Covid’. I can’t really picture it as a decade in the way I can with the others. I was born at the beginning of the 90s, which my older colleague says means I’m about 11 or 12 😂 whereas I know I’m actually 22.

Loads happened in the 10s! The Olympics, brexit, trump, Boris being mayor then pm! Maybe?

And austerity/ big society aka personal responsibility and charities replacing public services.

@MistressoftheDarkSide

I also find it odd how cassette tapes and vinyl has come back and also my adult children are now reading books again, and playing board games - and actually even though they are in their late 20s, on a recent camping trip they played hide and seek and darts and rounders. And they paint too. DD has done some lovely paintings and drawings this past 2 years.

They're actually starting to get sick to death of how smartphones are taking over everything. And how it's hard to escape from technology. They've been stuck to their screens for so many years and they've had enough. So they're going for walks and bike rides. And as I say, reading, and playing board games, and playing sports.

My daughter has a vinyl collection of 33 albums now. I've actually got 750 but I did collect them for 40 years to be fair not for two years that she's been collecting them.

Also, I do get this 'each decade did seem defined' thing... sixties seventies, eighties, nineties ...... but the 21st century so far is just the 21st century, isn't it? Just a big quarter century blob of 21st century (so far!)

And the jubilee or something like it? Def Royal Street parties maybe 2 in the 10s??

@PurpleButterflyWings

I do think some of the younger generations are getting tired of all the tech - and I don’t blame them at all …. it’s heartening to hear yours are doing other things! My son turned 29 today and despite being quite happy to still play games on the web, he hates social media with a passion.

Another thing that gets me is that since the pandemic and the subsequent fizzling out of the heightened fear, it seems very little fazes people.

I was recently agog at the US congressional hearings about UAPs / UFOs but most people I mentioned it to just kind of shrugged and went “Meh, whatever”. If this had come out 20 or 30 years ago, it surely would have been a big deal - now it’s all “pics or it didn’t happen”. I dunno - perhaps I’m just getting old 😹

Looks like your son is getting there @MistressoftheDarkSide if he is going off social media!!!

This thread should hit classics, @MNHQ.

Yes. Feels like 2009

It's different as you get older. So the time between 2000 and 2010 seemed like forever but 2013 seems quite recent! The years seem to go by much quicker as you age.

@PurpleButterflyWings

Yes I think he is…. He rolls his eyes at me sometimes because I simultaneously loathe Facebook but have to use it to promote my business, so I have a real conflict going on. Younger friends have urged me to use Instagram and TikTok and I just want to curl up and hide at the thought. For a start I’m rubbish at keeping up with stuff as it is, and I do feel “too old” tbh.

I feel sorry for creatives these days too - they can’t just create, they have to promote, market and sell across multiple platforms, and more than one of my artistic friends have just lost the joy in it all.

But that’s a whole other thread.

The time thing is fascinating though. I sometimes wonder if time travel will ever be feasible, or maybe it already has been in the future and we just don’t know yet….. I mean there is that theory that although we perceive time as linear, it’s actually all happening at the same time infinitely….. which makes my brain hurt just thinking about it….. maybe aliens are our future selves on package holidays from the future 😹

I'm 55, born in 1968.
What freaks me out is that I was born 23 years after the end of WW2.
23 years ago was 2000.

I was recently at The Science Museum and reading about the Wright brothers first flying a plane ...obviously that was centuries ago, only it wasn't, it was a month after my eldest grandparent was born! I was "only" born in 1970...

I was getting my hair cut today in the town I now live in and realised I'd been going to my "new" hairdresser for 29 years now. Just doesn't feel that long since I left my home town but at the same time it feels an age since I got my last perm there! We were both in our 20s when she started doing my hair, now both in our 50s and she owns the salon.

It’s also fascinating to think that people born in early 1900s have seen a rate of technological advancement like no other generation. I sometimes think I have little hope of keeping up with the rate of things now….. sure I like the conveniences we have, but all the AI stuff and deepfakes and Bitcoin etc just makes me want to say “woah, slow down, I’ve barely mastered me blinking banking app!!”

People born in early 1900s are dead though

Or: BEHOLD the passage of time