moonwalking with einstein

main takeaways

"Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it."

Falling into the habit of doing the same thing every day leads to our days literally blending together in our memory. The problem with this is that it literally decreases our psychological sense of time. In a way, this makes it possible to live a long and healthy short life and a short and fun long life.

In order to combat this, we need to increase the amount of "memory landmarks" in our minds. By switching up routines, saying yes more often, and just trying new things, it's posisble to increase your psychological sense of time, thus living longer lives.

"There is something to be said for the value of not merely passing through the world, but also making some effort to capture it – if only because in trying to capture it, one gets in the habit of noticing, and appreciating"

Before this book, I never really had any desire to remember important, or really any specific memories in general. I think after reading this book and this quote I really started valuing the intentionality of trying to remember happy moments. They're easy to forget, and once you do, you don't get it back.