Small novelties. Can we slow down our perception of time?
Rituals, temporal landmarks, and novel experiences.
I love New Year’s Day in a way that I could never love Christmas. A subtle lightness settles in my chest. A buoyancy lifted from the fluttering of possibilities. If Christmas is built on expectations, then the first few days of the year is about release. I was all too eager to leave the dark month of December behind.
There’s something undeniably comforting about shared rituals as a collective reset. I love them for the symbolism of hope and how they offer reassurance even in uncertainty. I’m a big believer in celebrating the new year with traditions from your culture or one of your own making. Rituals to sweep out negativity to clear a path for prosperity: twelve grapes at midnight, a bowl of black eyed peas. Submerging into frigid Coney Island waters on New Year’s morning (well, you won’t ever catch me doing that), or my own cultural tradition of rice cake soup.
As silly as it sounds, I’ve reached superstitious levels of reverence in making damn sure I eat rice cake soup in the first few days of the year (the last time I missed this very important tradition was 2020. Just saying).
I’ve largely abandoned resolutions as I’ve gotten older, but I understand the desire. It’s not arbitrary that online searches spike for diets, exercise, and other aspirational goals this time of year. Human instinct is to seek closure and renewal, and New Year’s gives us both.
Have you heard of temporal landmarks? Specific dates on the calendar that stand out from the rest? They act like markers that structure our perception of time, making us pause by interrupting the flow of ordinary days that tend to blur from one to the next. Anniversaries, birthdays, the first day of school—those are all temporal landmarks.
Psychologically, New Year’s Day is a big temporal landmark—a clear separation between our past and future selves. It might explain why we feel an inexplicable desire to start fresh with a clean slate.
But what I’m pushing back against is this compulsion to continuously strive to become better versions of ourselves. Under the weight of self-criticism, we sharpen our focus on what we believe needs “fixing,” but as a counterweight, I challenge you to settle into an acceptance of last year’s failures and learn from them. Isn’t that a better place to start the year from than shame and self-punishment? Can we simply accept ourselves as we are?
So while I appreciate a clean, delineated break between the old and new year where I can conveniently leave all my 2025 baggage behind (and I come into 2026 with a lot of baggage), I can’t wish my hopes into existence without learning from all of my shortcomings. I’m starting to think of New Year’s as renewal without reinvention. Life moves forward even when we’re stuck. Even if it’s solely from the superficial act of moving the calendar page from one year to the next, I welcome the reminder.
That said, I have always loved a fresh start. There is nothing like the thrill of moving across the country to a new city or moving into a new space. The giddy nervousness of restarting your life completely. Yes, I have thrived on reinvention, but as I get older and happily settle into routines, I’m left to find smaller ways to recreate that feeling.
I’m sure you’ve wondered why time flies as we get older but seem to stretch like molasses when we’re young. What is the science behind it? Time feels like it speeds up as we age, partly because we have fewer experiences that are truly novel.
“As we age, fewer experiences are truly novel, and the brain tends to compress repetitive or familiar events, making them seem shorter in retrospect. This phenomenon is linked to the way our brains encode memories — new and unique experiences are richly encoded, making time feel expansive.”
– Matt Johnson, PhD, Professor of Psychology at Hult International Business School1
I’ve lived in the same Brooklyn neighborhood now for twenty five years and in this apartment for twenty. It’s by far the longest I have lived anywhere. The pair of mourning doves who roost in our planters can easily be mistaken for the same pair of doves who have visited our window in the past, but they are generations of birds who have lived in our courtyard for as long as I can remember.
My middle-aged self is content in this quiet, boring life (watching birds, apparently), but my one constant wish is for time to slow down.
Scientists hypothesize that novel experiences create more detailed memory impressions which makes life seem fuller and therefore slows down our perception of time. Predictable routines require less cognitive processing and fewer distinct memory markers which can make time feel more like a passing blur. It makes sense when you think about the difference in time perception between children and adults.
I’m fascinated by the theory that suggests we can “stretch” time by introducing new experiences like travel or learning new skills. It works by creating deeper encoded impressions when we look back at our memories. These may even create new temporal landmarks.
While brainstorming for my own simple novel experiences, I signed up for a new workshop at the end of the month. And on New Year’s Day, I texted twenty five friends, many of whom I hadn’t been in touch with in years. I now have a steady run of catchup dates with people I haven’t seen since pre-Covid times.
Who knows if any of this actually works to slow down our perception of time, but it’s excuse enough to gently disrupt routines, as content as I am with them. I invite you to do the same. Small novelties. Some for frivolous joy, others for their capacity to challenge us. It might just carry us through winter’s malaise when the glow from the new year fades.
If you’ve ever considered supporting Everything is Liminal, here’s an offer for 20% off a one year subscription, good through January 14th. Paid subscriptions keep weekly newsletters free and helps me support my family, especially now. I am forever grateful for your readership and support in 2025. Looking forward to more in 2026. – JP
Related reading
A roundup of links & recs
To read:
How Memories Might Be Used to Help Heal the Brain (Undark)
Neuroscientist, Steve Ramirez, experiments with memory manipulation to potentially treat depression and brain disorders. My 19 year old is a student researcher at her school’s computational memory lab and we’ve been having some interesting discussions on memory. In particular, I’ve been fascinated by how memory retreats in Alzheimer’s patients after witnessing my dad’s own decline from the disease. In the future, will scientists figure out how to retrieve positive memories from parts of the brain?How Instagram Upended the Art World (The Walrus)
Are you an artist or an influencer? Or both?
"Instagram has upended the way the art world operates, accelerating the speed at which an artist’s career can grow and allowing artists to gain visibility. It’s also changed the content of the work itself: images must be flattened from a living, breathing piece of art into a collection of pixels to ensure they look good in the tiny real estate of a grid."The Unspoken Rule of Dining Etiquette: Are You Breaking It? (Serious Eats)
An experience we’ve all had: wanting to take the last piece or bite but restraining yourself because you thought it might be rude even though you really really wanted it. A fun read on the unspoken etiquette of not taking the last piece of food from a shared plate.The Art of the Holzhausen: My growing obsession with a picturesque method of stacking firewood. (Slate)
Didn’t even know woodstacking had a name, but of course it does!Everything Is Performative Now (i-D)
The term “performative” is now cultural shorthand for anything seen as calculated for an audience. I find it so interesting how the meaning of words change over time as it reaches mass cultural shifts.Climate change is affecting your food – and not in your favour (The Conversation)
Food is getting more caloric and less nutritious. And by food, scientists mean the crops that we grow. An effect of climate change I hadn’t considered :/
A purchase that’s changed my life:
Alright, maybe a little dramatic, but seriously, it really has. I spotted one of these Slipdrives on my cousin’s computer recently, but had never even heard of a hard drive sleeve before. Can’t tell you how many times my hard drive has disconnected or dangled precipitously from my laptop. I actually don’t stick the sleeve on my laptop directly, but on the underside of a portable laptop desk I use. My hard drive is now cozy, secure, and reachable at all times.
To watch:
They are utterly fascinating, mesmerizing creatures.
Til next week -JP
https://www.thegoodtrade.com/features/what-is-novelty-effect/
I did not know about temporal landmarks and that is my new favorite concept now! It makes so much sense that I want to make new ones.
Another recent shift of mine to the new year is to think of it as a time of composting. Clearing out and leaving it to mulch, and feed new growth. So much more regenerative than the “fix yourself” we’re sold every January.
I usually wait for the spring equinox to consider the year "new", although I do try to find a word that represents the energy I want to embody going into a fresh calendar. The concept of "temporal landmarks" and the science behind stretching time is fascinating!