The World

“Fallen leaves on the windowsill and my memories fold together.” — Jay Chou【枫】

Stopping Time

Sometimes, it is possible to slow down the passage of time without relativity (as in physics).

Sometimes, I set a 5-minute timer after I wake up for school and I just lie there and think. Those five minutes are really long compared to five minutes talking with friends. So, is it possible to replicate this in other places?

Meditation

Mr. M, my 7th grade geography teacher, was the first person that I met who meditated every day. He does it every morning for wellness and getting ready for the rest of the day.

Personally, meditation is a bit too slow for me, because it is mostly about focusing on breathing, which is not as exciting as thinking about things.

Note that my impression of meditation is what I’ve been shown in my school’s P.E. classes, which is sitting down and following along to a YouTube video. Below is an example:

Now, I understand that not all meditation is like this. Perhaps some people do just think about what they are going to do or ponder the mysteries of our world, and I might actually just try that now that I think of it.

Walking

Taking a walk is another way to slow time. Just observing your surroundings can be very interesting. For example, today I noticed that the sky farther away from me has a lighter gradient than the sky directly above me. Take a moment to wonder why that is, and I will reveal in the following paragraph.

Explanation for sky gradient

First of all, outer space has no color (black), and the sky directly above is the darkest blue. I’ve heard this before somewhere, so I am going to use this information: the sky gets its blue color from diffusion with air molecules. Then, assuming that less diffusion occurs directly above because the distance that light has to travel through the atmosphere is lower than if it traveled diagonally, it would make sense that the color would be closer to outer space (darker blue). Furthermore, since more distance -> more diffusion -> more blue than black, it makes sense that the farther away color would be lighter.

This information would be useful in drawing the sky.

Tree design

I’ve noticed that, when looking at a tree, the outline is actually mostly composed of leaves from branches growing perpendicular to the viewer ($\theta = \frac{\pi}2$ in spherical coordinates).

In addition, the leaves closer to the viewer are from branches pointing more at the viewer in $\theta$ than the perpendicular branches. These leaves can be drawn as “puffs” within the outline of the tree.

Songs

I once saw someone say on social media that they measure the length of a car ride in songs.

This is interesting, because each song is about three minutes, so it could technically be used to measure time.

However, what I find interesting is that songs are like packaged emotions. When the rhythm and notes come together, there’s something that makes people feel the way that the artist wants them to feel.

Getting caught in that wave of emotion can be a way to escape the flow of time, at least momentarily.

Song Lyrics

I’ve also heard that people who listen to sad songs aren’t that sad, but people who listen to the lyrics are.

That makes sense to me, since someone who is suffering briefly doesn’t have much of a reason to understand their suffering, while someone who feels down for a long time will probably try to understand why they feel that way.

Conclusion

This post was a bit short, but I’m short on time.

Later!