The Gardner Paradox

I live on the edge of a paradox that I can't reconcile.

Time passes by much faster for me than it does for most others. On the other hand I live much slower than others. How can that be?

I'm not alone in the first part of that paradox. Many others are crowding that stage of life. But I have less company in the second, often because living fast has followed its logic to the end.

By living slowly I don't necessarily mean moving around or thinking or speaking slower and all that, though that's a part of it. But it's much more a matter of having so many more events crowded into one's life -- living "fully," some might proudly claim.

I have had friends who have had so many more shifts crammed into their personal lives than I've had in the same period that it has made my head whirl. Before I know it, they've switched spouses and other family situations. They've changed jobs and vehicles. They've switched houses. They've moved from one region of the country to another. They've changed obsessions. They've altered their appearance. They've changed their outlook. They've changed their levels of prosperity. And they do these things multiple times, while to my perception I have continued to stand utterly still.

It's interesting.

Could it be that, for one thing, I'm confusing quietness for speed?

I'm working on the math of it as we speak.