TIME IS ACCELERATING

Did you ever get the feeling that time is speeding up, making you hurry faster and faster, feeling farther and farther behind?

Evidence that time is indeed speeding up, accelerating even, has been compiled by James Gleick in his book "Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything (Pantheon)." According to some interpretations of the Mayan calendar, as we approach the year 2012, the end date of their calendar, each successive cycle of time happens in half the amount of time (termed in other worlds perhaps) of the previous one.

Although not as metaphysically oriented as the interpreters of the Mayan calendar, the book discusses such accelerating realities as e-mail, caffeine, 23-hour news cycles, the microwave ovens, and cell phones, to name but a few of the items today's culture takes for granted but which makes our lives run even faster. Time is speeding up. This gives us a wonderful excuse for not being able to keep up with everything.