1/ I’ve been mega-obsessed with this feeling.
我对这种感觉着迷已经很久了。
A year as a 36-year-old seems so much shorter as compared to when I was a kid or even as a teen.
作为一个36岁的人，一年似乎比我小时候甚至青少年时期要短得多。
It seems cosmically unfair – we have fewer years to live, and each year flies by faster.
这似乎是宇宙的不公平 - 我们的生命年限更少，而每一年都飞逝得更快。
2/ But, why is that happening?
但是，为什么会发生这种情况呢？
My tentative conclusion is that it’s an unfortunate outcome of how evolution shaped our brain to be an efficient storage device.
我的初步结论是，这是进化塑造我们大脑成为高效存储设备的不幸结果。
3/ Our brain is a prediction device.
我们的大脑是一个预测设备。
Its top job is to construct a model of the world so that we get a survival and reproductive edge.
它的首要工作是构建一个世界模型，以便让我们获得生存和繁殖的优势。
4/ To be able to predict a phenomenon is to be able to control it and have power over it, so our brain is obsessed with predicting how things are going to go.
能够预测一种现象意味着能够控制它并对其有权力，因此我们的大脑着迷于预测事情将如何发展。
It wants to be able to predict how mates are found, how money is made, what makes people laugh, and so on..
它想要能够预测如何找到伴侣，如何赚钱，什么让人发笑，等等。
5/ But it’s also efficient.
但这也是高效的。
If an event has happened before, what’s the point of paying attention to it and storing it in memory?
如果一个事件已经发生过，那么关注它并将其存储在记忆中有什么意义呢？
Redundant storage is inefficient, so the brain likely only pays attention to and memorises what’s new and surprising.
冗余存储是低效的，因此大脑可能只关注和记忆新奇的事物。
6/ As kids, everything is new and surprising.
作为孩子，一切都是新奇和令人惊讶的。
The world is full of learning opportunities, so the brain makes massive updates in memories.
世界充满了学习机会，因此大脑会对记忆进行大量更新。
Full snapshots of your birthdays, vacations, days at school and so on.
您的生日、假期、上学的日子等等的完整快照。
7/ Surprising information comes in droves every single day, so the brain simply paid a lot of attention, and hence you felt there were so-many-slices-of-time in a day.
每天都会涌现出令人惊讶的信息，因此大脑会高度关注，所以你会觉得一天中有很多时间片段。
It also stored that rich information in memory, so even looking back, days felt longer.
它还将那些丰富的信息存储在记忆中，所以即使回顾过去，日子也感觉更长。
8/ As we grow, new surprises become a merely tiny-patch on an old memory.
随着我们的成长，新的惊喜只是旧记忆上的一小块补丁。
Why store the full details of your N-th vacation when you can simply store the diff of it from your first one?
为什么要存储您第N次度假的所有细节，当您可以简单地存储它与第一次度假的差异呢？
9/ In other words, as we age, our memories and attention become low-fidelity versions of their former self.
换句话说，随着年龄增长，我们的记忆和注意力变成了它们以前的低保真版本。
As patterns in life start repeating themselves, the slices-of-time that you notice and memorise become fewer and coarser.
随着生活中的模式开始重复出现，你注意到并记住的时间片段变得更少、更粗糙。
10/ Naturally, if anyone asks where did time in your life go, you’d access your memory and find the majority of them relating to childhood, and very few from the recent times.
当然，如果有人问你生活中的时间都去哪了，你会回忆起大部分与童年有关的时光，而最近的时光却很少。
And that’s why time feels like it accumulated in the past, and not in the recent present.
这就是为什么时间感觉像是在过去积累，而不是在最近的现在。
11/ The main culprit in time-speeding up is predictability.
时间加速的主要罪魁祸首是可预测性。
The more predictable your days are, the shorter they will feel.
你的日子越是可预测，时间就会感觉越短。
12/ A thought experiment.
12/一个思维实验。
If you have a stable job, you can pretty much mentally time travel a full year and find your days to be similar.
如果你有一份稳定的工作，你基本上可以在脑海中时间旅行一整年，发现你的日子都很相似。
But if I ask you to imagine doing a PhD in Sanskrit at a foreign university, you would have no idea what your days are going to look like.
但是如果我让你想象在外国大学攻读梵文博士学位，你根本不知道你的日子会是什么样子的。
13/ So, predictability not just impacts perception of time in the present but also for the future.
因此，可预测性不仅影响当前时间的感知，也影响未来的感知。
As kids, a vacation was full of surprising information, so it actually felt rich and long.
作为孩子，度假充满了令人惊喜的信息，所以实际上感觉很丰富而漫长。
Now, your nth trip to Goa feels much shorter as you know what you’re going to do.
现在，你第n次去果阿的旅程会感觉更短，因为你知道自己要做什么。
14/ So, what to do? How to slow down time?
那么，该怎么办呢？如何减缓时间？
The only approach I can think of is to break the predictability and actively plan to be (massively) surprised.
我能想到的唯一方法是打破可预测性，并积极计划去（大幅度地）感到惊讶。
Take on projects that you have no idea about.
接受那些你一无所知的项目。
15/ Unfortunately, we are evolved to avoid exploring and taking risks as we age.
不幸的是，随着年龄增长，我们逐渐变得不愿意探索和冒险。
Our brain pushes us to exploit more of the world we have come to understand better instead of pushing us to explore more.
我们的大脑推动我们利用更多我们已经了解得更好的世界，而不是推动我们探索更多。
But that’s precisely how you’ll make your years fly.
但这正是你让岁月飞逝的方式。
16/ You need to ask yourself.
你需要问问自己。
How do you want to answer how you lived your life?
你想如何回答你是如何度过一生的？
Long one, or the one that *feels* long?
长的那一个，还是*感觉*长的那一个？
What’s more important to you?
对你来说，什么更重要？
17/ Interestingly, the solution to slowing down time is not boredom (as I thought).
有趣的是，减慢时间流逝的解决方案并不是无聊（正如我所想的那样）。
Boredom is a negative state. The solution is to dive head-first into unknown territory.
无聊是一种消极状态。解决方法是毅然投入未知领域。
That is, to travel physically or mentally,
这意味着，无论是身体上还是精神上旅行，
18/ Note that we’re really good at grokking patterns / making predictive models.
请注意，我们非常擅长理解模式/制作预测模型。
As soon as we figure out a winning condition for a game or the story plot, we lose interest in it.
一旦我们找到游戏或故事情节的获胜条件，我们就会失去兴趣。
19/ So an existential crisis is a spoiler alert for life.
所以存在危机就是人生的剧透。
The brain with all its predictive models asks: is this all to life?
大脑及其所有的预测模型都在问：生活就是这样吗？
But it’s mistaken – it’s all only to the life that it has chosen to live.
但这是错误的 - 这只是它选择过的生活。
20/ A (radically) different life that it can’t predict will keep brain at its toes.
它无法预测的（彻底）不同的生活将使大脑保持警惕。
The key word here is “radically”.
关键词在于“彻底”。
The smaller the change, the less memorable the time.
变化越小，时间就越不值得记忆。
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