“This was once dense, dark hemlock forest. For millennia, sacred ground where the indigenous hunted, but would not live. Tanneries came in the mid-nineteenth century, cut ‘em all down, used the bark to tan leather, fouled the streams, didn’t replant. They put themselves out of business by the twentieth century, left a big mess. Not the sharpest tools in the shed. Thanks to Mother Nature and the state, it all bounced back within a decade, and the modern Catskills tourism industry was born. Which is sort of where you and I come in.”

The act of processing a deluge of information, most of it stressful, elongates time perception. It’s an evolutionary tic. Our brains are wired to take in more information when we’re stressed, so that if and when we’re in similar danger again, we’ll have copious information to keep us from perishing on the savannah. The aperture widens.