Marvelous Waffles and Logarithmic Thinking
“Absolutely marvelous,” he said, licking Nutella off his fingers.
Lucas and I were talking about his homeschooling days, when I used to take him to coffee shops to study. There was a little coffee shop where he adored the sweet Belgian waffles, and as we reminisced, I asked him if he’d like to spend another coffee shop workday with me this summer.
And we are.
Right now.
He’s sitting across from me, licking his finger with the biggest smile on his face while I type this and wonder where the time has gone.
On the way over here he asked me when the last time we had been here was.
“Um, probably over a year ago?” I guessed.
“No,” he said. “It was probably way longer than that. I would say three or four years.”
“Wow. Actually, I think you’re right. I have this thing where I can no longer tell how long ago things were.”
“Oh, that’s normal,” he said matter-of-factly. “The older you get, the shorter the years feel. It’s something called logarithmic thinking. When you’re little, one year is a huge portion of your life. But the older you get, each year becomes a smaller fraction of the whole, so time feels like it’s speeding up.”
He continued, clearly enjoying educating me.
“It’s like if someone asked you whether there are one or two light posts in front of you versus seventy-three or seventy-four lines on a paper. In the first case, you’re doubling. That’s a big difference. But by the time you get to seventy-three or seventy-four, who is really counting?”
“Damn, kid,” I said. “Consider me enlightened.”
Once I learned that – credit to Vsauce on YouTube for educating him – this weird time phenomenon suddenly made perfect sense.
The problem with that information, though, is exactly what I’m supposed to do with it?
Time is moving so fast, and yet I can’t quite figure out how to accomplish everything I want inside of it.
Sometimes it feels like it would require zero sleep, zero housework, no interruptions — not even text messages — and complete concentration on one thing to get it all done.
It would require not managing anyone else’s life.
It would require not having a social life, not reading books, not doing so many of the things that make life enjoyable. This is because it would really take just so much time.
And yet, here I am.
Eating gluttonous waffles with my beautiful boy.
Flipping between tasks. Wishing people happy birthdays. Building a shopping list. Thinking about side hustles. Wondering when I’m scheduling that doctor’s appointment or finishing the all the books I’m currently reading.
I’m also making a ridiculous number of typos while typing this because the keyboard on my laptop is terrible. So, add that to the list.
When am I going to fix this and publish it? When? Will it be in a week? Or in a “year” that is actually five years?
I feel like I’ve used my time wisely for the most part. But it’s getting harder to stay focused. There’s less and less quiet. More hustle. More multitasking.
Technology is incredible.
But it’s also a constant distraction.
I still get irrationally annoyed when someone scolds me about answering the phone when I’ve left it upstairs. I grew up in a time when if you missed the call, you missed the call. Now, God forbid you take a nap and put your phone on silent.
And we’re all becoming that way.
And our kids are born into it.
I think a lot of us secretly crave going back in time. Not because the past was some golden age. Every generation has its flaws.
But before smartphones.
Before social media.
Before the constant ping of the world demanding your attention.
Of course, there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle. History has never worked that way.
But maybe that isn’t the point.
Maybe the point is that we can still reclaim small moments of the past whenever we choose.
Like revisiting waffles at a coffee shop with your kid.
Like putting your phone down.
Like pausing long enough to notice the sweetness of Nutella on your fingers.
Pause.
Wonder.
Intentionality.
And licking your fingers clean with your eyes closed.
Oh, and in case you were wondering. It took me seven months and another visit to a different coffee shop to hit publish on this one.
