The concept was simple—gather a bunch of living, breathing bodies in the same place at the same time and just see what happens.

這個概念很簡單——把一群活體聚集在同個地方同個時間，看看會發生什麼。

Some parties were promises—and those were called "weddings," and other parties were goodbyes—and those were called "funerals."

有些派對是承諾，那些被稱為 「婚禮」，而其他派對則是告別，那些被稱為 「葬禮」。

There were parties to "warm" new homes and parties to mark the day you were born and parties to signal the arrival of a new year.

有 「溫暖 」新家的聚會，也有紀念出生日的聚會和以示新的一年到來的聚會。

And if my friends wanted me to be on time to a party, they'd lie—

如果我的朋友們想讓我準時參加聚會，他們會撒謊...

I wasn't proud of my reputation with time but…

我的時間觀念蠻糟的，但是...

Do you think my lateness is genetic?

你覺得我遲到是遺傳嗎？

I don't know.

我不知道。

No.

不是。

Yeah, because it's too much like your dad's.

是啊，因為太像你爸爸了。

There's a lot of different ways to be late, but you're late in this particular way that's exactly like him.

有很多不同的方式遲到，但你遲到的方式很特別，就跟他一模一樣。

Have you ever heard of IST?

你聽說過 IST 嗎？

Yeah.

有啊。

Indian Standard Time.

印度標準時間。

It means…

意思是...

It means that you don't have a sense of time.

意思是你沒有時間觀念。

Once someone was describing their color blindness to me and it reminded me a lot of how I feel about time.

有一次，有人向我描述他們的色盲症，這讓我想起了很多我對時間的感受。

How I know that 3pm and 3:05 are technically different, but I personally don't perceive that contrast.

我怎麼知道下午 3 點和 3 點 05 分是不一樣的，但我個人並沒有察覺到這種對比。

Time resembles color in other ways, too — we can only access the smallest sliver of both spectrums.

時間與顏色在其他方面也很相似，我們只能接觸到這兩者中最小的一絲譜。

Non-linearity and relativity remind me of ultraviolet and red-green — what scientists call the "Impossible Colors," colors we can measure, but can't actually see.

非線性和相對性讓我想起了紫外線和紅綠色——科學家們稱為 「不可能的顏色」，就是我們可以測量，但實際上看不到的顏色。

And like color, time is continuous.

而像顏色一樣，時間是連續的。

We can't locate the seam of an hour, the border of a day — the same way we can't declare with any precision where yellow becomes orange or orange becomes red.

我們無法找到一個小時的縫隙，一天的邊界——同樣我們也無法準確地看出黃色變成橘色或橘色變成紅色的地方。

And yet, over the course of human evolution we've insatiably sought to structure time.

然而，在人類演化的過程中，我們一直在貪婪地尋求時間的結構。

Dividing the sun into angles and tidily organizing the story of our lives into years.

把太陽分成若干個角度，把我們的生活故事整齊地整理成歲月。

It kind of embarrassed me — humans taking the unfathomable expanse of time and refining it into hours.

這讓我有點尷尬——人類把深不可測且廣闊的時間提煉成了小時。

The universe is 13.8 billion years old — who are we to assert the importance of a minute?

宇宙有 138 億年的歷史——我們有什麼資格斷言一分鐘的重要性？

But I tried my best to banish those thoughts.

但我盡力去驅逐這些想法。

I bought clocks and set them to five minutes early.

我買了時鐘，並將其設置為提前 5 分鐘。

I filled calendars with meticulous, month-long plans.

我在日曆上寫滿了一絲不苟、長達一個月的計劃。

I even put a whiteboard on my fridge and every morning, I wrote the date down.

我甚至在冰箱上放了一塊白板，每天早上，我都把日期寫下來。

I was finally closing the gap — becoming one of those people who holds the reins of time.

我終於縮小了差距——成為了其中一個掌握時間韁繩的人。

And then — The pandemic happened.

然後...疫情發生了。

And suddenly Tuesdays were Thursdays were Sundays.

突然間，週二變週四又變週日。

Flowers bloomed and wilted and babies learned to crawl and grey hairs grew in, but the larger story of time felt interrupted —

花開花謝、嬰兒學會了爬行、長了白髮，但時間的大概念感覺被打斷——

bland birthdays and cancelled weddings and solitary holidays.

枯燥乏味的生日和取消的婚禮，以及孤獨的節日。

Doing the same thing in the same place with the same people, day after day after day.

在同一個地方和同一個人做同樣的事情，日復一日。

Previously imperceptible shades of time showed up at our doorsteps.

以前不易察覺的時間陰影出現在我們的家門口。

Like special relativity — in the spring, time moved glacially as it does alongside black holes.

就像狹義相對論一樣——在春天，時間像在黑洞旁一樣冰冷地移動著。

And then, without warning, it accelerated — so that when I asked my mom what day in May we were on, she gently informed me it was July.

然後，毫無預兆地，它加速了——所以，當我問我媽媽今天是五月幾號，她溫柔地告知我已經七月了。

Or non-linearity.

或非線性。

How we emerged after months spent holed up in our homes, only to find ourselves reliving the very same moment that had driven us inside in the first place.

我們是如何在躲在家裡幾個月後擺脫出來才發現，自己在重複當初讓我們待在家的行為。

The whole world joined me in temporal disorientation — even my punctual superiors were at a loss.

整個世界都和我一起陷入了時空錯亂——就連守時的上級也是一臉茫然。

They knew how to arrive five minutes early  — not how to repeat the same five minutes 43,854 times.

他們知道如何提前五分鐘到達——而不是如何重複同樣的五分鐘 43,854 次。

I regretted taking time for granted.

我很後悔把時間當成了理所當然。

Now I would give anything to hear someone say, "the party starts at five, or the doors close at eight — don't be late."

現在，我願意付出任何代價聽到有人說：「派對 5 點開始，否則 8 點就結束了——不要遲到。」

It turns out our perception of time is incredibly malleable — even color can distort it.

事實證明，我們對時間的感知具有不可思議的可塑性，甚至連顏色都能扭曲它。

When people are shown blue and red stimuli of the same duration — they consistently overestimate the blue and underestimate the red.

當人們看到相同時間的藍色和紅色刺激時 ，他們始終高估了藍色，低估了紅色。

Temperature also warps time — the hotter we are, the faster we feel it passing.

溫度也會讓時間發生變化——我們越熱，就會覺得時間過得越快。

And music, too.

還有音樂，也是。

Oddly, uptempo music decelerates time and downtempo music hastens it.

奇怪的是，上拍音樂會使時間減速，而下拍音樂會使時間加速。

So, if smooth jazz, heat waves and a bit of blue are enough to mangle time, no wonder a pandemic upended it.

所以，如果流暢的爵士樂、熱浪和一點藍調就足以讓時間變得混亂，難怪一場疫情顛覆了它。

In 1983, a paper published in the journal Science described an experiment in which researchers claimed to have overridden the human eye's opponency mechanism —

1983 年，發表在《科學》雜誌上的一篇論文描述了一個實驗，研究人員在實驗中聲稱已經推翻了人眼的對立機制——

allowing people to see "impossible colors."

讓人們能夠見 「不可能的顏色」。

The participants said the colors were vivid and awe-inducing — but entirely indescribable.

與會者表示，該色彩鮮豔，令人驚歎，但完全無法形容。

Like seeing red for the first time and having no name for it.

就像第一次看到紅色，卻不知道名字是什麼一樣。

I imagine them returning to their lives, tucking the impossible colors away, into the closets where we store our most inarticulable memories.

我想象著他們回到自己的生活中，把不可能的顏色收起來，放進衣櫃裡，在那裡我們儲存了我們最不可言傳的記憶。

But had they not been alone in what they'd witnessed, had the whole world woken up one day, suddenly able to see a new color —

但是，他們並不是獨自一人目睹了這一切，難道整個世界都在某一天醒過來，突然就能夠看到新的顏色——

I think we'd have created a name in a matter of hours.

我想我們會在短短的時間內創造出一個名字。

Because when it comes to color, we innately gravitate towards classifying what we see.

因為說到顏色，我們天生就會傾向於把我們看到的東西進行分類。

Naming the shade between orange and red "pink," calling the blue of the Aegean "royal," and the blue of the Caribbean "aquamarine."

將橘色和紅色之間的色調命名為 「粉色」，將愛琴海的藍色稱為 「皇家」，將加勒比海的藍色稱為「海藍寶石」。

But when it comes to time, we have such a limited lexicon.

但說到時間，我們的詞彙量是如此有限。

Fast.

快。

Slow.

慢。

Long.

長。

Short.

短。

Future.

未來。

Present.

現在。

Past.

過去。

Beyond that — we're pretty much speechless.

除此之外，我們幾乎沒有形容詞了。

But not hopeless.

但也不是沒有希望。

In 1812, Dietrich Nikolaus Winkel invented the metronome.

1812 年，Dietrich Nikolaus Winkel 發明了節拍器。

But two hundred plus years later, classical composers still prefer to communicate musical time in sentimental Italian.

但兩百多年後，古典作曲家們還是更喜歡用音樂的方式來傳達音樂的時間，用感性的意大利語。

Tempo allegro — cheerful time.

Tempo allegro ——歡快的時光。

Tempo allegro ma non troppo — cheerful time but not too much.

Tempo allegro ma non troppo——歡樂的時光，但不會太多。

Tempo rubato — stolen time.

Tempo rubato——偷來的時間。

Maybe we've been too fixated on fixing our metronomes when what we need most is vocabulary for these new colors of time.

當我們最需要的是字彙給這些時間的新色彩時，也許我們太過執著於修理節拍器了。

To describe 17-second months, millennium-long days and a year without any parties.

描寫 17 秒月，千年長日，還有一整年沒有派對。

Language for when time undergoes a phase transition right there in your hand — days melting and months evaporating and years freezing.

當時間在你手中發生階段性轉變時相對的語言，還有日子在你手中融化，還有數月蒸發發數年冰封。

Maybe there's a word for that in Italian.

也許在意大利語裡有個詞可以形容它

Maybe it translates to "impossible time."

也許翻譯成 「不可能的時間」。