SPEAKER_00: Radiolab is supported by IBM. The one thing we can never get more of is time. Or can we? This is Watson X Orchestrate, AI designed to multiply productivity by automating tasks. When you Watson X your business, you can build digital skills to help human resources spend less time generating offer letters, writing job recs and managing schedules, and spend more time on humans. Let's create more time for your business with Watson X Orchestrate. Learn more at IBM.com slash orchestrate. IBM, let's create.
SPEAKER_11: Listener supported, WNYC studios.
SPEAKER_01: This week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'll talk with the legendary director, Werner Herzog, who takes time to review the reviews of his new memoir. Werner Herzog on the New Yorker Radio Hour from WNYC studios. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
SPEAKER_08: Oh wait, you're listening. Okay. All right.
SPEAKER_12: Okay.
SPEAKER_07: All right. You're listening to Radiolab.
SPEAKER_08: Radiolab. From. WNYC. The C.
SPEAKER_04: The C? Yeah. This is Radiolab, I'm Lulu Miller.
SPEAKER_05: I'm Latif Nasr.
SPEAKER_04: And we're gonna start this one. It's right here, I'm gonna grab it. With our producer, Sindrinyana Sumbandan. I had to take the tape off from my wall. Who a few weeks ago brought me into the studio to show me a very large poster. Life calendar and lots of red Xs.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so this is a poster that I keep across from my bed. Okay. It's basically this like giant grid of boxes. And there's like 52 going across, 90 going down. And every Sunday I use this red marker to cross off a box.
SPEAKER_04: So 52 weeks for a year, so each box is a week? Exactly. And like in theory, you'll maybe make it to 90 years. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02: If I live to be 90 years old, every single box will be checked off.
SPEAKER_02: I'm triggered.
SPEAKER_04: I am, I am. Why on earth?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, I got this poster six years ago when I was living in this Zen Buddhist commune. And part of the practice there was to like really confront our own mortality. Right. And this poster was a way for me to do that. But as I've been doing this for years now, you know, just checking off a box week after week after week, I'm like starting to notice something, which is that like these weeks are going faster and faster. And like, I know people say this happens, but I know that time moves more quickly as we get older. But like, I'm really feeling it happening, you know, like I'm about to turn 30 and I feel like I'm going to wake up tomorrow, 80 years old, staring death right in the face.
SPEAKER_04: That's interesting. Cause I think you're right that like a lot of us do get the bleary sense of like, whoa, whoa, that year just went by, but for you having those regular check-in points must make you notice it in a slightly more granular way. Yeah. And it's made me like desperately want to know,
SPEAKER_02: is there something I can do to slow this down? To slow time? Yeah. Like, is there a way for me to make my life like this one single life I have? Yeah. Is there a way for me to make it feel longer?
SPEAKER_11: Could you send me a link to where you want could find this poster?
SPEAKER_02: So I actually called up a couple of time perception researchers, Mark Whitman. From the Institute of Frontier Areas of Psychology
SPEAKER_11: and Mental Health in Freiburg, Germany.
SPEAKER_09: David Eagleman. I'm a neuroscientist and a writer.
SPEAKER_02: Okay. Friend of the show. And I asked them my question, how do I live the longest feeling life possible? And they said one way to make time feel longer.
SPEAKER_09: Think about sitting on the international plane flight.
SPEAKER_11: Just imagine you're waiting for the bus or a subway and it's not coming.
SPEAKER_02: Do something super boring.
SPEAKER_09: Is that the life that you would want?
SPEAKER_02: No, no it's not. But fortunately, according to David and Mark, there's this whole other way to extend time too.
SPEAKER_09: The retrospective one where I think, what a year I've had. This happened, that happened, amazing.
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, yes, that's the one. Like that's what I want. So you want it to feel like it was longer
SPEAKER_04: when you look back? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02: When I'm in my death bed, I wanna look back and be like, wow, that was a long and meaningful life. Okay. And stretching time out that way, Mark and David say is all about
SPEAKER_11: Memory, memory, memory.
SPEAKER_02: Collecting memories. Like that's how our brain measures time.
SPEAKER_09: It says, oh wait, how long has it been since X? And then it says, oh, all right, we'll see this, this, this. Okay, great. It must've been a week or a month or 10 years. So then I was like, okay, I need memories.
SPEAKER_02: How do I make more memories? Good question.
SPEAKER_09: The only reason you have memory at all is so that you can navigate your future. And so when you're writing stuff down, it's something that your brain feels is important.
SPEAKER_02: So you brushing your teeth this morning, do you remember? Probably not, no.
SPEAKER_11: Why would you want to memorize your tooth brushing when you've done this for 365 times each morning, which is why for many people,
SPEAKER_02: the pandemic years were sort of a blur.
SPEAKER_09: There was nothing new happening.
SPEAKER_02: And it's also why time seems to move faster as we get older.
SPEAKER_09: Sometimes people say, oh, I think this has to do with the fraction of your life hypothesis, which is just that, you know, a year when you're eight years old is a big chunk of your life, but a year when you're 80 years old is a smaller chunk. That's what I always heard. That's not, that's not the whole story. As you get older and older, there are fewer reasons to lay down memory because essentially your brain has got the shtick and there's no corrections that need to be made. But when you're 80 years old, if you go on some great new adventure that you weren't expecting, that seems to have lasted a long time. Whatever age you are now, if you have an incredible weekend and you look back, you think, oh my gosh, it's been forever since I was at work on Friday. But if you have a boring weekend, you think, oh my gosh, I was just here. And so this can happen at any age that if you force your brain to lay down new memories, then retrospectively that makes it seem as though more time has passed. And so you could say having a life
SPEAKER_11: with a lot of novelty, change, with emotions, such a life will imprint more deeply in your memory and then looking back at your last day, your last week, your last 10 years, even your lifetime, then the longer subjectively time stretches or time feels.
SPEAKER_02: So according to my scientists, if I wanna make my life feel longer.
SPEAKER_11: Avoid routine and seek novelty in your life. That will be like the formula.
SPEAKER_09: You know, you can brush your teeth with your other hand, you can shave with your other hand. David gave me a bunch of these like little- When you get out of the shower, try to towel yourself off in a different way because I've noticed people always towel themselves off like unconscious zombies. Life hacky tricks. I mean, easy, go unplug your coffee machine, put it somewhere else, rearrange the food in your fridge. Put your dishes in a different cabinet. Put your silverware in a different drawer. Seriously, a bunch of them. You pull this one off its nail here, this one off its nail here, you swap them, you switch it, you push your desk over to the other wall. Okay.
SPEAKER_02: But now that I understand how this works, I don't just wanna make life a little bit longer here and there. I wanna see if I can stretch time apart completely. Yeah. Like how long can I actually make it feel? Ooh, okay. So Lulu, I've actually come here to tell you that for the next week, I'm gonna live the most novel life that I possibly can. Wait, what do you mean? Well, I have some rules. I'm gonna wake up in a different bed every day, not my own bed, a new bed. Whoa, okay. I will eat only things I've never eaten before. Okay. And outside of the non-negotiable things of being human, I will only do things I've never done before.
SPEAKER_04: Wait, how? Okay, what? Wait, you're about to go on like a crazy experiment?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly. Like I wanna see, can I make a week feel like two weeks? That's my goal. All right, well, I'm excited for you. Thanks, I'm excited too.
SPEAKER_04: Cinder will be back in a week and we'll be back in about two minutes because on the radio, we can do that.
SPEAKER_10: Hi, Rebecca Murray here from Mount Vernon, Washington.
SPEAKER_13: I'm a member of Radiolab's exclusive membership program, The Lab. My membership provides Radiolab with a steady source of funding so the team can continue to tell stories about our crazy world. And I get access to exclusive live events and bonus content. Join me in supporting the show we love. Sign up at radiolab.org slash join. Radiolab is supported by Betterment.
SPEAKER_04: Picture this, your eyes meet a mysterious stranger from across the room. Your souls start to intertwine, your hearts start to become one, and you haven't thought about your investing portfolio in a while. That's because you use betterment. Betterment lets you be wildly, madly, deeply, totally chill about your finances. Their automated technology makes it easy and simple to get in the market and stay in the market without checking in every day. Gone are the days of being glued to your phone, tracking your portfolios every move, and not being able to trust that your money is where it should be. Thanks to Betterment's expertise, automated technology, and optimization tools, you can be the totally chill investor you've always wanted to be. Plus, you'll have more time to try and figure out what your future is. Plus, you'll have more time to try and figure out that mysterious and alluring stranger from across the room who will surely drive you mad. Betterment, be invested and totally chill. Learn more at betterment.com. Investing involves risk. Performance is not guaranteed. Radiolab is supported by the Body Electric podcast. Our biology is changing to meet the demands of the information age, but why and what can we do about it? If you're interested in finding the answers to these questions and more, listen to the Body Electric podcast on NPR. Body Electric is a six-part series that investigates how our relationship with technology is impacting our health. From nearsightedness to mass psychogenic illnesses to type two diabetes rates doubling in young people, listen now to Body Electric on TED Radio Hour from NPR, wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Radiolab. I'm Lulu. We're talking about how to make your life feel longer with our producer Sindhu Nyanasambhandan and whether it's possible to make a single week feel like two weeks by doing only novel things. Sindhu.
SPEAKER_03: I love Lulu. Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_04: Okay, where have you traveled? What have you done? Throw the pastiche at me. Okay, I'm just gonna, I'm going through the list. Yeah, love it.
SPEAKER_14: Okay, novelty. Here I come. Do you know where I go to volunteer for lunch?
SPEAKER_02: I volunteered at a soup kitchen. Mm.
SPEAKER_03: What's the job, Radio Shack, radio? I convinced a man on the street.
SPEAKER_02: You get, you know, let me try one to teach me how to skateboard. Oh my God, fun. Can you just eat it like that? Uh, yellow food. Found some of these little golden berries in Chinatown. $25 pound.
SPEAKER_07: Just gotta make sure it's on your phone. Turn off your phone, okay.
SPEAKER_02: I went to the New York State Supreme Court and watched a couple trials. Okay.
SPEAKER_14: So, who are you? I'm Jay.
SPEAKER_02: I attended a dating app mixer with my boyfriend, Jay.
SPEAKER_08: I think this is an app for novelty seekers. Hi.
SPEAKER_02: Talked to a bunch of strangers there. I went on a date with someone who revealed to me
SPEAKER_06: that his mom might have gotten murdered the weekend beforehand. Just person after person.
SPEAKER_02: Flow of time.
SPEAKER_04: It just flows. It does. Yes. Sometimes it flows faster, sometimes it's slower. Like a river.
SPEAKER_14: I like needed to leave that like an hour ago. And I don't want to go to a random person's house right now and I don't want to wake up at 7 a.m. to go surfing. Like, I'm not. And I haven't eaten basically all day because like I can't find food that I haven't eaten before.
SPEAKER_05: Sounds like you're noveletied out.
SPEAKER_14: I'm just, I'm tired.
SPEAKER_08: We're experiencing your dark night of the soul, but it's day one.
SPEAKER_14: I just want to go home.
SPEAKER_02: I kind of fell apart, but I made it to the place I was going to stay that night. Is this your room?
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I stay here. You can stay here. Which was this place I found on couchsurfing.
SPEAKER_02: It was essentially the top bunk in the bed of this very nice Turkish man. And the next day I woke up feeling good. I felt ready to keep going. I'm looking for a New York surf school. I went surfing.
SPEAKER_12: Make sure you pick the right way. With a bunch of 12 year olds. It might be a small one. And then you take the small one and then like four big ones come and you miss them. That feels like good general life advice.
SPEAKER_02: Wait for the right wave. Yeah. I'm not a swimmer. Like I can survive for a little bit, but I can't really swim.
SPEAKER_04: Wait, you can't swim and you went surfing? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Were you wearing a life jacket? No, but I mean, the surfboard is floaty, right? Like you're just going to float on the surfboard. Yeah, but like the ocean.
SPEAKER_04: You can't, okay.
SPEAKER_02: So this is just a little memo mid surf lesson. I'm like good at surfing. The very first time I did it, I made it through the entire wave. And the 12 year old were watching me and I was like, oh yeah. He thought I was some old lady who was just gonna fall on my face. Hussein, Hussein, Hussein. Later that day, I met up with Hussein. He was my couch surfing host from the night before. He's this pedicab driver actually in Central Park. And he offered me a ride. Fun, okay.
SPEAKER_04: Oh, watch out.
SPEAKER_02: I was close. Here he's sitting on the bike sideways facing me.
SPEAKER_11: Just see me on the street when next traffic.
SPEAKER_02: At one point he made me start driving the pedicab. I love that we just traded. Oh wait, wait, wait. Amazing. I hit the curb multiple times, almost crashed into people.
SPEAKER_06: Okay, maybe I shouldn't do this. No, no, one more.
SPEAKER_02: And then on day three.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you know anything about atmosphere and perspective. Nothing. I learned how to paint with acrylics.
SPEAKER_02: How hot is this? You know, 2003.
SPEAKER_14: Ooh, there, it's a bubble. Oh, it's growing. And blow glass.
SPEAKER_02: And later that night I went to this like performance art spa thing. It was just like a lot of naked people and gongs. What? Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_14: Okay. Hello, hello? Okay. So it is Friday. No, not Friday.
SPEAKER_03: Let's see. It is Wednesday night and I'm gonna sleep on my roof. My brain is shutting down. It's like I can't make eye contact and ask questions that make any sense. I can't. I think my whole system is just like exhausted. The system that is just like on high alert because everything is different all the time. I don't know. But then there are moments like this where I'm lying on my roof staring up at the beautiful sky on a perfect night and wondering how I have never done this before. You know? It's just like so many things I just haven't done. Okay, I should go to bed.
SPEAKER_04: Good night. Okay, how's time feeling for you at this point?
SPEAKER_02: It's stretching. It definitely felt like more than three days. But I don't know. I was like starting to hit this sort of it almost felt like a monotonous pace. I could do a new thing and take the subway across town and do a new thing and take the subway again. And it almost felt like I was making a sort of routine out of novelty or something.
SPEAKER_04: Like the novelty itself was becoming old. A little bit.
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, okay, I need to change something up here. You know, Mark did tell me that like doing emotionally rich things with the people you love that also becomes memories. So the next day, oh my God.
SPEAKER_10: Oh, sun is already kind of out.
SPEAKER_02: I decided to go find some of those. Okay, I'm just getting packed up. Just gotta walk over to my rental car. So I rented a car and I got out of New York City. She's crossing state lines, people.
SPEAKER_04: Crossing state lines.
SPEAKER_02: Which is actually pretty novel for me. Like I've never done a solo road trip before. I'm at a rest stop in Milford, Connecticut.
SPEAKER_03: Oh, oh, oh.
SPEAKER_02: Did the massage chair. Continue for 66 miles.
SPEAKER_14: The first time makes you bolder even the children get older now.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, we're going to Tasha's house. And eventually I made it up to Vermont where I met my friend's baby for the first time. Also hung out with her toddler. If you guys want to hold it, you can.
SPEAKER_14: But be gentle not to drop it.
SPEAKER_02: Who had just found a newt. This child's world was constant novelty. I just wanted to discover him a little. Her time probably moving slower than for any of us.
SPEAKER_02: Continue for 56 miles. Then I looped back down south. Another cowboy song. Drove east, east, east, super east. Yeah, I've been listening to country music
SPEAKER_03: for four and a half hours straight.
SPEAKER_02: I'm into it. To one of the tips of our continent, Cape Cod. Okay. Your destination is on the way. God, I think his dad's outside. To meet Jay's parents.
SPEAKER_04: Oh, that's a big new thing.
SPEAKER_14: Hi. Good, nice to meet you.
SPEAKER_13: We do have several novel things for you to do. Only if you want.
SPEAKER_02: They were like in on the adventure from the beginning. Which is so sweet. Yeah. It's like the biggest bag of potato chips I've ever. You know the Cape Cod potato chips? Yeah. The echo of the lighthouse.
SPEAKER_02: The lighthouse on that bag, we ate the chips inside it together. But uh.
SPEAKER_12: Is that a clam?
SPEAKER_02: I caught my first clams. You got the big one.
SPEAKER_02: I hear the water boiling.
SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
SPEAKER_02: So they're dead by now?
SPEAKER_07: They're not dead until they open. Oh God. Okay, this one.
SPEAKER_02: The clam part is like the chewier part. I also ate my first clams. I'm so grateful that you put breadcrumbs and cheese in it. Everything's free. Free, can you imagine? And our last stop together was the dump. This is like Christmas morning all the time. Where they have this little swap shop. Two squirt guns.
SPEAKER_07: Ball for the dogs.
SPEAKER_02: It's a whole corner of crutches.
SPEAKER_06: So lovely, lovely. Thank you for coming.
SPEAKER_14: This was such a delight. Be safe.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, I'll see you both hopefully soon. Anyway, I think that's, yeah, I mean that's.
SPEAKER_04: And then did you come home from Cape Cod on yesterday, on Sunday? No, there was one more day,
SPEAKER_02: but I think I might save telling you about that day. Oh.
SPEAKER_04: Was it an action packed day?
SPEAKER_02: No, it wasn't.
SPEAKER_04: Okay. Like just to circle back to your investigation, you just lived this week with like easily at least 40 new things. A ton of day, like pretty big things. Like new ways of moving through the world. Surfing, skating, multiple state lines, Massachusetts, Vermont. Like new ways of moving matter, glass blowing. Like you have this like incredible range. Yeah. Like overall, when you look back on the past week, did it feel stretched longer than a typical week? Shorter? Like how did it make time work?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean I don't want to sound like I'm exaggerating, but it truly was time expanding beyond what I even imagined. It's very long. Very long, yeah. It worked, yeah. It worked with like flying colors, it really worked.
SPEAKER_04: Did the week feel like two?
SPEAKER_02: Probably two or three weeks. I mean, okay, look, it's actually hard to say exactly. That's not how my brain is processing it. But like, okay, we do know that the mechanism here is memory. Right. And I started to think about it almost as like control save moments. Like how many moments did I do a little control save on? That's interesting. And that I feel like I have more of a sense of. Yeah, that's interesting.
SPEAKER_04: And it's weird, like how many control saves when you're just like living your life on autopilot, how many do you think you get a day or a week? Very few, very few. Like are there entire days that don't even get a control save? I think so, yeah, most days, right?
SPEAKER_02: Like I don't think I could come up with a memory for every day of my life. Like most of them are not recollectable, like they're gone.
SPEAKER_04: And I know you're fresh off of it right now, but like how many control saves do you think this week got?
SPEAKER_02: My God, it's hard because again, it's fresh. I'd be curious how I answer this like in a year. Yeah, or like a month. But right now there's like hundreds.
SPEAKER_04: Hundreds, wow. I would say hundreds. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04: Were there, when you look at the spread of the week, like were there parts that felt particularly stretched out?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, actually there was this like one hour stretch honestly felt like a whole day. Wait, that's insane. You have four radios. It was the second night. Whose art is this?
SPEAKER_08: Children's art.
SPEAKER_02: You're a teacher. I went over to the home of my second couchsurfing house. What site does the snack wanna go to?
SPEAKER_08: His name's Adam.
SPEAKER_08: Right. That's for me too, yeah. We had this long leisurely tea time.
SPEAKER_02: Is that a problem? That we're always moving our food to the right first? Like are our teas gonna...
SPEAKER_08: Maybe they already have.
SPEAKER_02: And then at some point he was like, okay.
SPEAKER_08: I have an idea. I wanna see what you think about my idea. He says today is a full moon
SPEAKER_02: and technically the full moon should rise at about the same time as the sun sets. And so he's like, should we go see it? Like, yeah, that sounds fun. So we're here in Riverside Park now.
SPEAKER_08: We went up this giant rock hill, but...
SPEAKER_08: We don't have a decorative view of the east.
SPEAKER_02: We could see the sunset. We could not see. There's too many buildings in New York City. Like we could not see the other side, the east side. Now we have another quest.
SPEAKER_08: We have 20 minutes. And then at some point it was like... What's the width of Manhattan? Okay, well, one of us probably just has to go
SPEAKER_02: to the east side. Okay, the bus is right there. I'm very fast. And so he instantly saw this bus and started like chasing it down. Oh my God, he's just sprinting.
SPEAKER_02: No. He doesn't make it. So then I grab a city bike.
SPEAKER_14: I'm gonna go that way, okay? Stay here.
SPEAKER_02: And I just start going for it. Like I'll go across Manhattan to see the moon rise while he just stays and watches the sunset.
SPEAKER_03: I keep getting stopped on the way, but I think I'm pretty close. And what time is it?
SPEAKER_14: Hello? Okay. Here's the situation. So I made it across town and I'm looking out into the East River. So that's a good news, right?
SPEAKER_02: And, but the thing is I'm looking into Roosevelt Island, which honestly is not the worst, but there are trees. So I'm gonna, you know, there's like a good few inches that I'm seeing above the horizon.
SPEAKER_03: God. I think it just set. I think it just set. I think it just set.
SPEAKER_02: So we missed it. But then I see some other people there. So I'm like, hey, are you guys here to see the moon? Are you here to see the moon? No, there's a rocket launch.
SPEAKER_09: I think that's it actually. There's a rocket launch from Virginia tonight.
SPEAKER_14: Wait, wait, wait, no way. Wait, Adam, can you hear this? Like a NASA rocket launch.
SPEAKER_02: What? What?
SPEAKER_03: What type of rocket is it?
SPEAKER_09: It's a resupply ship to the International Space Station. That's even cooler.
SPEAKER_02: I know. But then. I'm so sorry, look at the moon.
SPEAKER_02: The moon finally appeared over the buildings and it was a super moon, Lulu. Like this huge giant orange moon.
SPEAKER_05: It's so big. It's very orange. It's amazing. That's when you eat on the side of the island.
SPEAKER_02: And I got so much more.
SPEAKER_02: And I guess technically during that hour, seconds on earth were moving like this. But as I look back on it now, I can feel the wind on my face as I'm pedaling across the city. I can see the man pointing out that rocket, the craters on that giant orange moon. And again, I look back at my tape and it was all just about an hour. But it feels so much longer than that. And it'll probably always stay with me that way.
SPEAKER_04: So it seems like there's also a power in expectation getting broken. Like things not going to expectation. Like that seems to get a control save.
SPEAKER_02: I think you're totally right. Yeah, surprise. Like being surprised by the world.
SPEAKER_04: This is making me wanna also ask you now that you've successfully extended time, are you sure that's something you want? Are you so sure that's something you want?
SPEAKER_02: This might be a good time for me to tell you about that last day.
SPEAKER_04: Tell me about your last day.
SPEAKER_02: So on Saturday night, Jay and I drove back from Cape Cod. And by the end of the eight hour drive, we decided to part ways. Like break up?
SPEAKER_04: Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. What do you wanna share about that?
SPEAKER_02: Not much about that. I actually don't wanna share anything about that. But it did mean that I stopped the experiment. Like I went home to my same old bed and ended up just like curling up with my little stuffed animal monkey. And then the next day, we are at the monastery. I went upstate to my monastery. It was a marching band practice. Hi. Oh, it's Julia. With like a bunch of my best friends.
SPEAKER_03: I know it was the last minute.
SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh. Yay. We like did this little ceremony. Wow, those tomatoes. And then we'd all brought food so we had this like potluck.
SPEAKER_02: And then we just like chatted and hung out and someone played the guitar. It's kind of the perfect day.
SPEAKER_14: The magic worked.
SPEAKER_06: Back to the city. Are you driving us? No, I wish. Bye. Cindy, will you come up for home this week with us?
SPEAKER_02: This last day showed me like I need days like that. Like I need comfortable, familiar days. I mean, sometimes they're just necessary. Right.
SPEAKER_02: But now I know that those days are more likely to feel shorter, to get deleted. And I guess Lulu, we've talked about how your life right now has a lot of routine. Kids, a wife, a house. Do you? My boring ass life.
SPEAKER_04: My life deleting life.
SPEAKER_02: Well, no, I mean, look, I want those things too. But you are at a stage where you've made certain choices that like the research says does really shorten your felt sense of time. Like having kids is kind of huge. As you put it, deleting my time. Just bloop.
SPEAKER_04: Okay, maybe that word choice is loaded.
SPEAKER_02: But shortening your felt sense of time. Like how are you processing this research?
SPEAKER_04: I mean, do I regret like getting married and having kids? Um, no, but it does make me think about the time inside those choices differently. Like it makes me mourn all those little moments. Just, you know, like my kid last night dancing to Green Day and saying, come here, come say hi to my friends. And pointing to a blank wall and me being confused. And there were like these four shadows and he made me say hi to each one. Like that's gonna get wiped. That'll be gone. Like hundreds of thousands of seconds and moments just gone. And so I respect and I appreciate your going out and testing and sharing the knowledge of how to extend time. But I also hold a candle to all that time, all those moments getting lost.
SPEAKER_05: Oh, come on. Okay, sorry to barge in here, but no way. That to me is like antithetical to the whole spirit of this story. Like that's the predictable bone you toss at the end to people so that we're not like judging the status quo normies who are just doing the same thing over and over again. Like it's like, no, go try a new food, go to a restaurant, go do a new thing. I want people to wake up and feel bad about like just being on autopilot for their lives. Like you have one life, like wake up.
SPEAKER_04: Okay, point taken. And I think there's some admitted self reassurance of like attempting to tell myself that my life isn't boring and I point taken. But also I just question the value system. Like it's only remembering the stuff where some expectation gets broken. And like who decided is like evolution decided that the things that we're gonna remember, that we're gonna privilege, that are gonna keep us awake,
SPEAKER_12: have to be novel, have to be jaunt,
SPEAKER_04: like have to be breaking some rule, which to me just smacks of fear and like self preservation. And what if we could like rebel against our master wirer to also hold the little like moments that normally get wiped. How can you rebel against your own brain?
SPEAKER_05: What does that even mean? Actually, I mean, I do feel like that's sort of what I do
SPEAKER_02: when I meditate.
SPEAKER_10: There's another way to go about this than just insisting on novelty your whole life, which could get kind of expensive.
SPEAKER_02: I actually called up my Zen Buddhist priest, Kosen from that monastery. And he told me that having novel experiences, that's actually just a shortcut to the thing that actually makes memories.
SPEAKER_10: All that what we call novelty does is force us to pay attention.
SPEAKER_02: And when we pay attention, he says, we discover that.
SPEAKER_10: There is nothing that is not new. Everything is novel.
SPEAKER_09: So I can look at a scene that's absolutely familiar to me, like the desk in front of me, but I can say, God, I've really never noticed in the way the light falls here and the way I've got this thing from 10 years ago that I've never touched or moved. David Eagleman again. I can really pay attention to it and take in my desk in a different way. I can make things novel. Now it's probably not as good as actually going out and experiencing meaningful novelty that really changes your life, but you can certainly do it from the inside.
SPEAKER_04: Take that big guy. That was just a bagel. You're talking to yourself.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, my brain. That was just a bagel that I ate this morning, but my goodness. The flake of salt and the flake of pepper mixed into the everything with the cherry tomato on top of the cream cheese was like a divine, was like as sacred as Sindhu seeing a super moon with like a astronaut chaser and like, you know what? Moons are orange, cherry tomatoes are orange. They're both circles and I'm gonna remember them both.
SPEAKER_05: Enjoy your bagel and I'm gonna go skydiving with my new pet koala that I'm gonna adopt and let's check back in on our death.
SPEAKER_04: All right. That's it for this week. This episode was reported and produced by Sindhuramenasambunban and edited by Pat Walters, with sound designed by Jeremy Blplayers and mixing help from Ariande Wack. Special thanks to Joe Idman, Nathan handled, Christopher Lin, Stacey Reiman, Ashleeimo,, Eric Wilson,ants. Bring the bloodensor into the air Ash Sanders, Zaria Shockley, Tasha Meyers, Glenn Smith, Adam Aheroni, and Hussein Ishta. And also a very special thanks to Jay Menard for recording and editorial support. If you'd like a life calendar, I'm not sure why you would, but maybe you would. Actually, okay, if you listen to this piece, you might. You can find them on Tim Urban's blog. It's called Wait But Why. Thanks for listening. I'll catch you in a week, which will be up to you to either let pass you by quickly or slowly.
SPEAKER_08: Bye. Hi, this is Tamara from Pasadena, California.
SPEAKER_07: Leadership support for Radiolab Science Programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
SPEAKER_03: Back to my poster and... Another week done.
