It seems to be a global phenomenon. With every passing year, time appears to be accelerating.
Where ever we go and where ever we turn we hear people commenting about time flashing by so quickly, time pressure, the days appearing to become shorter and so on.
Young people are much busier these days than we were when we were growing up. They have more activities to attend to and school schedules are very full, along with after-school work and activities of various kinds.
The same holds true with every age group in different ways and for different reasons, barring perhaps only the newly born.
If we throw modern day digital devices, such as mobile phones, gadgets, tablets and gaming devices into the mix it quickly moves the whole phenomenon to another level.
One group of thought say that the 'time speeding up' phenomenon is due to a lack of 'milestones' as we get older and that this perception is based on psychological reasons. The 'firsts' which greet us in the earlier period of our lives diminish as we age. This explanation, however, seems incomplete.
Another school of thought takes a more scientific bent bringing quantum physics into the mix. The Schumann Resonance, which can be likened to the pulse or the heartbeat of the planet is said to have been stable at 7.8 cycles per second for thousands of years. This same group say that since 1980 the pulse has begun to increase. It is currently at 12 cycles per second. Some claim that when it reaches 13 the earth will actually stop rotating on its axis. It will not rotate for approximately 72 hours and then slowly it will begin to rotate again but in the opposite direction and a reversal in the magnetic field around the earth will thus ensue.
Very interesting...
And yet where do we actually stand in the midst of all of this? What do we have to measure with or even comprehend our place within a vaster scheme of which we are slowly becoming aware? The interdependence of every living thing has now become undeniable and yet we still have not acknowledged how this is so or why.
We are under the impression that awareness exists because the world exists, but exactly the opposite is true.
The world exists because we are aware...
Don't underestimate the importance of this statement. It is, in all actuality, mind-blowing.
If we go back to the absolute fundamentals based on our perception of the world in which we live, move and have our being, we are faced with the incredible mystery of our awareness. That, which is under-rated and often overlooked is, in fact, the very key to unravelling our confusion over the whole, messy business of living and dying and everything else.
Within an ever-broadening mandala of interconnectedness, we are being forced to begin noticing what is closer to us than any 'thing' can ever be.
How beautiful it is that this fundamental 'truth' turns out to be the simplest thing and the only thing that we can ever really verify in our own personal experience.
We all have the intimate and direct experience of our existence. It's really the only thing we have. Think about that for a moment.
Everything outside of that is hearsay.
Meanwhile, we are living our lives in a state of almost perpetual distraction. Our attention is riveted to the evanescence of life and not to the spring of 'awareness' from which it all arises. In other words, our eyes are fixed on the moving colours and shadows on the screen of life and not apprehending the screen upon which those colours and shadows are dancing about.
We are running faster and faster to get, well, nowhere...
Busy-ness has become a dilemma of our times. Too much to do and too little time to do it in.
Yet, we only need to pause a moment and take note of what really is right now and we are immediately brought back to zero...
What can be simpler than that in a complicated world?