Time flies doesn’t it? It flies faster as we age it seems.
Yup. A Terry Pratchett quote I’ve quoted before and am mangling now: “Inside every old person is a young person wondering what the hell happened.”
EDIT: And it’s not as if we don’t recognize that we’re getting older. We know! My internal image of my age, however, is moving along MUCH more slowly than what’s actually happening. I think in my head I’m perhaps around 40 now? Over a decade behind, and getting farther back with each passing year!
I remember reading one from Yi Fu Tuan where he describes many concepts of time and space, one was of walking backwards into the future looking at the past. Because you can see the past and not the future. And within said walking-backwards-journey one year is almost like living memory if you are five years old. However when you are 50 it’s just a small fraction of the path that you can see. Another one he had was the idea that the child was the parent of the grown up because the grown up grows up from a child. Kind of like the star trek episode where they grow up backwards.
I’ve never been much of a Beatles fan, or a fan of McCartney. But I think he nails his reflections on ageing and time here. Well played, Sir Paul!
Guy
Time flies
and then
It Flew
I know I’ve been in Taiwan too long when I can travel to Sydney, take my grandson to the doctor in a clinic nearby. Thing is you go to receptionists desk and the conversation is initially in English… the staff then chat amongst themselves in Chinese when they are not talking directly to you. Doctor comes out and asks them a question about my grandson in Chinese and I give him the answer in Chinese. We chat a bit in Chinese before she goes into his room before I bring the kid in.
The nurses and the doctors get over their initial shock of having a white dude flip into Chinese to speak about my grandsons needs. The grandkids are known at this clinic. Two other old white people waiting to see a doctor looking at me like I’m some sort of Alien from a different world.
They were probably just wondering what’s brought you over from Alishan.
They probably never heard of Alishan lol
Yeah … 25 years ago… It seems like yesterday. This also got me a little.
You know you’ve been in Taiwan too long when you see a little kid whip down his pants and piss in the drain next to the 7/11 entrance, dance around the entrance with his pants still around his ankles afterward and it doesn’t garner your attention as much as the lineup at the grubby food stall across the street.