We are now a decade into the twenty-first century, and off to a bad start. Decades almost always have their partisans – hippies liked the 1960s, socialists liked the Seventies, capitalists liked the Eighties and techies liked the Nineties. But the past decade has few defenders, if we leave aside terrorists and aficionados of decline.
Maybe it is odd that the decade passed so quickly. Unpleasant things are supposed to drag on and on: dentists' visits, workplace orientation sessions, almost all speeches. Yet no one complains that “this decade seemed to last 15 years”. Decades never do. Time may slow down from hour to hour, but from year to year it has a uniform tendency to accelerate.
We can demonstrate this with a little game. We are now in the year 2010. Measure the number of years back to a certain event in your life – say, your entry into university. Then measure the same number of years back from there. Invariably, the event in the middle will seem closer to this year than to the older date, even though it is equidistant from the two.