I recently attended a wedding and was chatting to a person from New Zealand.
A song came on that we both hadn’t heard of in years and I mentioned that I was in Year 9 when it came out. My new Kiwi friend said ‘Australians seem to do that a lot – know what year in school they were.’ They thought it was odd! The whole exchange got me thinking: How do people look back over their life?
Shaped perceptions
Time is a fascinating concept. I especially love geeking out on the philosophical understandings surrounding it. Our perceptions of time are shaped by our native and local cultures, the languages we speak, our occupation and age, the technologies we use, and above all else, by the processes in our brains.
Markers
As shared, I often recall what school year I was in and also, having lived the first 15 years of my life in Europe, where I was living at the time. Since settling in Australia and then later, finishing up my education, time has been marked by workplaces and also significant partners. And more recently, BC (before Covid) and AL (after lockdowns).
Question
So I’m curious to know, when you’re trying to think of when a song came out or how old you were when a significant event happened, how do you do it? What are your bookmarks? What do you see, hear, connect to?
