Summer is here! ....Aaaaaand it's gone

Have you ever noticed that time goes by faster now than before? One day you were 15, freshly graduated from your care-free days at high school then the next moment you realize you're having a crisis on which jobs you can take before your parents kick you out from their houses effectively cutting your free internet connection (you better start searching for the nearest McDonald's - no, you can't afford Starbucks). 

The fact is, time speeds up as you age... At least, your perception of time increases as you age. Haven't you ever heard your mom say "What? It's the -ber month again? I JUST cleaned away the decorations" while you marked another day of your calendar for your countdown to the semestral break?

Essentially, as you age, the amount of time you have spent on Earth living increases therefore making that portion of specific time increasingly minute as compared to when you spent that specific time when you were only 4 years old1. Basically it's like the Milky Way to the universe. When you were young, your world was only up until the Earth, as you grow older; your knowledge expands to know that there is a whole system of planets other than where you’re living in. As you age, your world becomes more expansive and before you know it, that summer you look forward to so much only becomes a single galaxy in the vast universe of your life. 

On the other hand, when you were young, a lot of things fascinated you and took hold of your attention.  You used to absorb as much perceptual information from the unfamiliar world as possible. You tended to notice more novel things. A lot of first time experiences were felt as soon you first stepped into the conscious world from your first steps, first lollipop, first school trip, first date, first job, etc. and as you live your everyday, more and more things are just mere repeats of what you have already experienced; so familiar that you don't already notice some of these things anymore. According to a study done by a psychologist, Ornstein2, we tend to perceive time to be passing more slowly if there are more perceptual information to be absorbed, or more complex perceptual information to be absorbed. Conversely, the more familiar something is, the less intensity there is in our perception. I was always so confused why people always said Daang Hari, the road connecting Alabang to Cavite was so excruciatingly long that in my head I was like "Wow, I must really be used to traveling long distances" when in reality, I was right. I was so used to the road which I go through everyday that I did not notice that real distance that new passers noticed.

That is also where the correlation of time to age comes up. Less and less things fascinate us as we grow old because of familiarization. They don't fascinate you as much as they did when you first experienced it. Why should you pay attention to the pavement or the bubble gum drops in the roads anymore anyway? I remember when I first came here in the Philippines, I used to avoid every gum drop I see on the road (which is almost impossible sometimes) and now I barely even notice any of these anymore. In fact, I don't even know if they still exist in roads today. 

You've heard the quote "You never know what you got until it's gone". Of course you did, that is like, the message from every sad song on the radio. This quote illustrates the fact that you don't notice something that has always been there because it's always been there. It's familiar, and there, that you don't pay much attention to it anymore. 

"Why don't you like me?"

Of course, unlike gum drops on the roadside, these are people, so when they leave, you metaphorically and literally feel their absence (and of course, there are those vague Facebook statuses).