Time as a Wave

We understand time to have some periodicity. As we approach the speed of light our universe bends around us. This interplay is the most beautiful image in my brain. When life is hard I stop time and move through space; this is perhaps amongst my greatest gifts. At the time of this writing the world is a disjunction. Everything is happening so fast. A few weeks ago a friend shared with me the idea that time is a wave. I think they are on to something. Let me explain what they meant by that.

Picture an ocean wave approaching a beach. As it builds and approaches the shore, the water up top starts to move faster than below. Eventually it reaches a peak, and crashes back towards what it left. A wave by its waxes and wanes, speeds and slows. Our time feels decisively nonlinear, and it’s not exponential. Yes, humanity’s “progress,” if we can call it that, is speeding up. The ocean might have more energy but it stills come down in waves. We are approaching the top of a wave.

A lot will happen quickly. I have not as of yet made any good guess as to the periodicity of this wave. I would speak in terms of lifetimes, but I cannot know if I will live another day or eon. Our future is unpredictable but what is clear is the density of time feels higher now than it did a year ago, or ten, or twenty. Perhaps the period is about 90 years, which would explain why the 2020s feels so much like the 1930s. We should expect a lot to happen quickly—this is a time of radical change.