Elves, Men, and Perceptions of Time

[Cúdae]

Something Morwen Tindomerel said got me thinking again.

Fading may indeed prove to be preferable to endless eons in Aman, Tolkien does say even the Powers will come to envy the Gift of Men.

The Gift of Men is death. Natural death where the body wears out. Tolkien made dying seem to be a pretty big change- a change the Elves weren't guaranteed. Sure, they can be killed in battle, drown, or whatever form of rather unpleasant death they'd like, but they won't die naturally. Maybe men could accept change far easier than the Elves because of the great change they were guaranteed- natural death.

The subject of natural death can figure into the perception of time too. Men have a point at which life (on this plane of existence anyway) ends. The Elves didn't have that. Even if their bodies died, they could be re-embodied as demonstrated by Glorfindel. Thus, no end here. Maybe time seems to pass faster to men because they (ah...we) die- guaranteed. If you look at it one way, all of life is preparation for death. Men could use life to prepare for that natural death that awaits them (if nothing else happens in the meantime to speed up the process).

Elves, granted life without natural death, have nothing to prepare for. Time seems to slow down for them, because they have no end. They fade, but they still live.

On a related note to this- Possibly the long lives of Numenoreans (did I get that right?) prior to starting to fear death can be attributed to this in some way. Without a fear, they did not prepare, and ultimately lived longer lives. They still were granted the Gift of Men by Iluvatar though, so they could not altogether escape death. Anyway, when they started to fear, started to prepare for that death, they lived shorter lives. Much later, Aragorn managed to die without fearing death. He also lived longer than expected. Of course, he had the blood in his veins that granted him a rather long life anyway, but (as far as I can remember without having the book handy) he lived even longer. Possibly because he stopped (at least partially) fearing death and stopped preparing for it?