It’s About Time

Humans have the capacity to experience time like no other creatures on the planet. We are the only ones who are aware that we have a past and a future; we have a sense of the passage of time in ways that an elk or a starling do not. Other creatures are able to recall where they buried their food, which requires the function of memory. But we don’t have evidence that cattle are talking about last year’s corn harvest in the way that the farmers are who planted and raised it. Unless, of course, those cattle are in a Far Side comic strip.

Most significantly, when we do consider the passage of time, we are not dispassionate bystanders. When we imagine our pasts or our futures, we experience emotional responses to them. And we know just how strong those emotional responses can be, depending on the events we are imagining. As it turns out, our engagement with time and the emotional tone that accompanies it play a far more crucial role than we are often aware of in shaping what our lives become.