Slowing Time

When I was younger, time stretched out before me, and the time left to me seemed indefinitely long. Now the time left to me seems indefinitely short. According to the U. S. Bureau of the Census’s Statistical Abstract for 2011, the number of years remaining to the average 80-year-old white male in 2007 was 6.7. The invasion of my bones by prostate cancer makes that figure pretty optimistic in my case. “Depend upon it sir,” Boswell quoted Johnson as saying, “when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

My mind is concentrated for sure, but I need not be gloomy. First of all, I've already lived far longer than the average white American male born in 1931. According to the Statistical Abstract, a white American male born as late as 1970 had a life expectancy of only 68. One way to look at it is that I’m living on borrowed time. But I prefer to think of these added years as an entirely undeserved bonus.

Second, and perhaps more important for my present state of mind is the notion that by cultivating awareness, I can slow time down, so that the time left to me can seem much longer and richer than the same amount of time when I was younger. This idea was strengthened recently when I listened to Krista Tippett’s radio interview with the neuroscientist Richard Davidson. A professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin, Davidson is best known for his brain studies of contemplative Buddhist monks, which he pursued in cooperation with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The interview can be heard at www. on being.org.

When Ms. Tippett asked Professor Davidson how his understanding of being human had changed since the 1960s and 1970s, he said that he now has a richer, more encompassing sense of what it means to be human and that he has a greater appreciation for the preciousness of each human encounter. Further, he said that in many respects he has a subjective sense of time slowing down, because he is now better able to stop and look at each moment in order to appreciate what it might offer instead of rushing off to the next thing.

So often the people I see on the street look as if they’re dashing grimly to their next appointment, their next task, rushing through life without savoring it at all. Perhaps New Yorkers are more prone to this headlong behavior than residents of other cities. As early as the 1830s, New York merchants were described as walking as if a good dinner were before them and a bailiff behind. And businessmen’s lunches were described as being hurriedly eaten, almost wolfed down. This seems such a pity when there’s so much to notice, so much to appreciate in life.

A listener asked Professor Davidson how being present applied to multitasking. First of all, he said, there’s a question as to whether a person is really doing two things at once or oscillating rapidly between one task and another. But in either case, the aim is to pay attention to whatever it is you are doing, to live in the moment, without thinking of your next appointment, your next deadline, the next thing on your list of tasks.

If I think of the time ahead as composed of innumerable moments, opportunities to look about and appreciate what there is to be seen - the thin red streaks on the petals of the yellow carnations on our window sill, for example - my remaining life will, I think, be enriched and not seem so short. Since Professor Davidson supports me in this expectation, I will do my best to cultivate awareness, to appreciate the world around me, and to savor each moment as it comes.