I've read
Phenomenology Of Internal Time Consciousness by Edmund Husserl several times and, as a result, it surprises me that I'm still able to function under my own power. I don't recommend it to anyone, not because it isn't a good book, or even a classic in philosophy, but because reading it may cause brain damage. And it most definitely should be on this list:
The Top 10 Most Difficult Books
Or this one:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/louispeitzma...r-read#38vbcxw
Of interest to me is that Martin Heidegger, the editor of PhOITC, is on both lists for his work,
Being and Time.
It's an interesting question, to me, in terms of psychiatric syndromes, since each diagnosis comes with different, usually extreme subjective experiences of time, which can be perceived by the alert observer. I think our relationship with time carries a great deal of potentially useful information about who we are.
Of all the things we can fix, change, redeem, learn from or for which we can make amends, we can never restore the time we've lost. Time, or I should say my subjective experience of time, was my enemy when I was trying to get sober. I seemingly ached with every moment, wishing as I did to erase my alcoholic past, either through time travel or deletion of memories, along with my desire to be whisked along to a better place. Things changed after I achieved sobriety, and so time became my most precious commodity. I got very busy,
very busy, in building a better life, and I've not looked back.
(Steve Jobs is quoted as quoting someone else when he said,
"If you live each day as though it's your last, someday you will be right." It's a funny anecdote that's part of a larger message that, in turn, is a small part of his stunning commencement speech at Standford University several years ago. I'm sure it's on YouTube, and easily found through Google.)
I find a tremendous amount of relief and personal gratification by framing whatever I'm doing at the present moment as the most important thing in my life, and this is no longer a mostly conscious dynamic. The moment I describe the present moment, it's gone, and I've changed as a result, though the change is rarely dramatic.
I don't use traditional meditation techniques, and I probably couldn't tell you in any intelligible way how I get it or use it, but I have tremendous focus and concentration that's counterbalanced by a playful, free-floating consciousness; an active mind and an active imagination. None of this was the outcome of a conscious wish or plan on my part. I instead cooperated with the process of self-discovery that allowed me to shed many of my biases about who I am as a person. Even that explanation seems trivial, if only because a large part of this process remains a mystery to me.
EDIT: I should add that during my episodes of major depression, I spend my depressing wealth of surplus time by torturing myself, which is linked to my belief that I'm wasting my life.