Awhile back, I made a documentary on how our metabolic rate affects our perception of the passage of time. How fast our body runs determines how fast we see time passing and how quickly events seem to take place. The first part of the film illustrated how different animal species have different default metabolic rates and thus perceive time and action differently. Humans behave in slow motion compared to some creatures and quickly for others.
In the second part, I explored how our metabolic rate gradually slows with age, changing our perception of time. For active, growing children, a day seems a long time and next week is forever. For the elderly or ill, the years can seem to fly by.
In this video, RSA animation illustrates another good talk, this time by Philip Zimbardo. He explores how our perspective of time affects our work, health and well-being – even who we are as a person, how we relate to others, and our culture as a whole.
The time model he uses lacks the less common “now” orientation of someone “living in the moment.” This is quite distinct from Present Hedonistic or Fate orientations. The effects he illustrates gives a small hint of how massively culture will change when more people are living in a timeless moment.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/13356701]