Slow down time

Time perception is a strange thing. When you're in a routine, time rips by. Break the routine, and time slows down.

There are a bunch of different ideas about why this is, but the one that makes the most sense to me is the theory that your brain is constantly mapping out the world and building models. It's a prediction engine, and the more it can predict the terrain/people/experience, the fewer new memories it needs to form.

I read an interesting article about this phenomenon a month or so ago and it recommended changing things up to extend your sense of time. Drive a different route to work. Rearrange your desk. Vary your experience as much as possible.

Most days, Zoe and I take the dog out for a walk in our neighborhood. We'd typically do the same route. In an effort to mix things up (and expand our sense of time), I downloaded an awesome app called AllTrails. Basically, it's a crowdsourced map of all of the best hiking/walking paths and parks in your area. Through it I've found dozens of parks I didn't even know about, and we've been trying new ones every day.

Oddly, this has added a sense of novelty to my life, I assume because my brain is building new models each time and therefore building more memories. It has made me oddly happy and become a fun new hobby: finding cool hidden natural beauty in my own city. So often, we think we need to travel to have new experiences, but sometimes the novelty is right under our noses.

Originally published in the I'm going to be a douche. issue of Never Enough.