Here’s a thought experiment.

Compare yourself to a mayfly. The mayfly hatches, matures, mates and dies within a 36 hour period. It’s experience of infancy, adolescence, maturity and old age happens within 3 solar days.

Arguably a mayfly experiences time different to you. Solar time is constant, but experientially the fly lives a lifetime within a few days.

Compare yourself to a toddler who wakes, eats, naps, wakes, eats, plays, sleeps. Within a few hours the child can transform from happy, sad, tired, hungry, excited and morose.

Their attention span is at the minute level. They change so quickly, each day learning new things. Like a dancing flame, their life experience is vital and changing.

Arguably a toddler experiences time different to you. Solar time is constant but experientially the toddler lives a few months within a few days.

Do you notice people older than you seem to find the years pass pretty much like days ?

Oh – another year already?

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Arguably someone in their 80s experiences time different to you. Solar time is constant but experientially they live but a few days within a year.

Do you imagine that experiential time progresses throughout our life as though on a coil? Tightly sprung we are conceived, we are born, we grow, we mature, we age …..and we die.

We come into this world spinning like a top, whirling rotations. As the solar days set our clocks, our experiential time differs  to other creatures and other humans.

Slowly our coil slows until our experience plateaus into unchanging days and years ………..

Enter into a story, and within the short inches between covers, you experience a life time of feelings, visions, tastes, smells, loves and losses. A few short days can yield months or years of experiential time.

Is it true then reading stories makes as though young again? It tightens the coil of our experiential time back to the vitality of our youth?