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Zenosyne.
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It’s actually just after you’re born that life flashes before your eyes.
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Entire aeons are lived in those first few months
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when you feel inseparable from the world itself,
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with nothing to do but watch it passing by.
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At first, time is only felt vicariously,
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as something that happens to other people.
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You get used to living in the moment, because there’s nowhere else to go.
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But soon enough, life begins to move, and you learn to move with it.
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And you take it for granted that you’re a different person every year,
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Upgraded with a different body
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...a different future.
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You run around so fast, the world around you seems to stand still.
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Until a summer vacation can stretch on for an eternity.
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You start to feel time moving forward,
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learning its rhythm,
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but now and then it skips a beat.
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as if your birthday arrives one day earlier every year.
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We should consider the idea that youth is not actually wasted on the young.
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That their dramas are no more grand than they should be.
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That their emotions make perfect sense, once you adjust for inflation.
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So for someone going through adolescence,
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life feels epic and tragic simply because it is:
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every kink in your day could easily warp the arc of your story.
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Because each year is worth a little less than the last.
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And with each birthday we circle back,
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and cross the same point around the sun.
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and wish each other, 'many happy returns.'
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But soon you feel the circle begin to tighten,
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and you realize it’s a spiral,
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and you’re already halfway through.
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As more of your day repeats itself,
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you start to cast off dead weight,
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and feel the steady pull toward your center of gravity,
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the ballast of memories you hold onto,
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until it all seems to move under its own inertia.
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So even when you sit still, it feels like you’re running somewhere.
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And even if tomorrow you will run a little faster,
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and stretch your arms a little farther
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you’ll still feel the seconds slipping away as you drift around the bend.
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Life is short
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and life is long
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but not in that order.