What you are describing is correlation not causality. Its not a biological change that comes with age which causes this. Its the environment that older people are in that causes it. If you were to keep taking in new information and experiences at the same rate as when you were a child, the effect would not manifest. Thats basically impossible tho, which is why this is such a universal experience.
We are not on autopilot because we are old, but because there is no reason to change our behaviour anymore. If you take someone out of that autopilotable stagnat environment (moving abroad, vacation, getting kids, etc), then the effect will go away, until they have adjusted enough to be on autopilot again.
I feel like we are psychologically old because we are on autopilot and not because we are physically old.
New experiences would make time move slower, but the vast majority of what we do is routine
You might eat a new thing for lunch, but you’re still eating lunch like you always have.
You might walk to a new place, but you’re still walking.
Having a kid is different than not, but have you ever talked to a parent about how repetitive things get? Things change as the kid ages but it changes incrementally, no big overnight changes. It may seem like that, but that’s because the parents went on autopilot and didn’t notice the small incremental changes till something happens where they notice the change. And then quickly get used to it, putting them back on autopilot.
Like, you’ve never heard a single parent say “it feels like yesterday I was changing your diaper!” to a kid in their 20s?
While you can cram a bunch of novel things in to try and help, it doesn’t change the past before you did so. So those years dont have as many milestones and doesn’t feel like much happened, meaning looking back time went fast.
You can try to always be doing new things constantly you’re entire life, but that takes a shit ton of money. And good luck earning that in a way that doesn’t become monotonous and allows you all that time off work to do the novel stuff.
I get what you’re trying to say, but it’s not correct.
What you are describing is correlation not causality. Its not a biological change that comes with age which causes this. Its the environment that older people are in that causes it. If you were to keep taking in new information and experiences at the same rate as when you were a child, the effect would not manifest. Thats basically impossible tho, which is why this is such a universal experience.
We are not on autopilot because we are old, but because there is no reason to change our behaviour anymore. If you take someone out of that autopilotable stagnat environment (moving abroad, vacation, getting kids, etc), then the effect will go away, until they have adjusted enough to be on autopilot again.
I feel like we are psychologically old because we are on autopilot and not because we are physically old.
New experiences would make time move slower, but the vast majority of what we do is routine
You might eat a new thing for lunch, but you’re still eating lunch like you always have.
You might walk to a new place, but you’re still walking.
Having a kid is different than not, but have you ever talked to a parent about how repetitive things get? Things change as the kid ages but it changes incrementally, no big overnight changes. It may seem like that, but that’s because the parents went on autopilot and didn’t notice the small incremental changes till something happens where they notice the change. And then quickly get used to it, putting them back on autopilot.
Like, you’ve never heard a single parent say “it feels like yesterday I was changing your diaper!” to a kid in their 20s?
While you can cram a bunch of novel things in to try and help, it doesn’t change the past before you did so. So those years dont have as many milestones and doesn’t feel like much happened, meaning looking back time went fast.
You can try to always be doing new things constantly you’re entire life, but that takes a shit ton of money. And good luck earning that in a way that doesn’t become monotonous and allows you all that time off work to do the novel stuff.
I get what you’re trying to say, but it’s not correct.
Journaling and mindfulness meditation help with this and are free (except the cost of a journal if you get a physical one).
And if that’s too much effort you can always try microdosing.
If your brain is experiencing the same world in a new way it will seem to go slower.