No matter how clever or resourceful we are, there’s no way we can stop, travel through, or run away from time. Its effects can often be so gradual that we don’t notice them, but it’s always working on us and everything around us.
Sure, we may point to some people like Keanu Reeves or Pharrell Williams who don’t seem to age, but you can bet that time is working its magic on them in ways we can’t see.
But when the powers of time do finally reveal themselves, they’re pretty good at showing just how much of an impact they’ve made. And today, we have some perfect examples.
Once upon a time, this inscription was a lot easier to read.
However, it seems that as a tree grows, so do the initials that some young lovers carved into it.
It’s oddly appropriate since enough time has likely passed that those couples are either married or haven’t seen each other in years.
Sometimes, we can surprise ourselves with how little time it takes to wear our possessions down.
For instance, we might expect that it took years for a chair to wear this ring into the floor, but it turns out that this all happened within one year.
It’s hard not to notice that this stop sign is white, but we can see some evidence that it’s not like that on purpose.
Some residue from the original red paint remains, but it’s hard to tell what happened to the rest of it.
It’s possible that the sun bleached it away, but it could also be that other weather conditions wore it away.
If you miss the lock and scrape your key against the door, you might be relieved to know that you’re far from the only one.
For some reason, enough people have done that at this door that they’ve actually worn a swooping groove under the lock.
Well, either that or one person did it every day for years.
This signature has managed to change a lot over the last five years.
For some reason, each one is shown on this form at the dentist’s office the uploader goes to and it shows a pattern of getting looser and less defined over the years.
You may have noticed something similar in how you write your signature. I know I have.
Sometimes, it’s pretty easy to see where things originally sat long after we move them.
While that usually has to do with finding a new use for a space that was obviously made to accommodate a specific furnishing, the sun will forever show that this bookcase used to stand by the stairs.
20 years of sun bleaching will certain do that.
While time is quite capable of working on its own, it’s also good at showing the many ways we change things ourselves.
This Russian building, for example, appears to have gone through at least two completely different design decisions to appear as we see it today.
While this might make for an interesting design, it just happened to develop this way.
Either this person is super aggressive about how they stir their coffee, or this mug has somehow managed to go unbroken over the course of many years.
Either way, it’s oddly impressive.
With how much dust has accumulated on this, it’s hard to tell what we’re even looking at.
While it’s definitely a cause for fire hazard concerns if your lint trap looks like this, it’s probably also not encouraging for a furnace filter to have this much dust on it, either.
Although we can often see how much time has passed in worn things we own, it’s also possible to see it to a mind-blowing extent in perfectly sturdy objects.
For instance, this paper clip storage piece has sat on the uploader’s desk for years, but they only recently learned that it was old enough to be made in West Germany, which stopped existing as a nation in 1990.
This third floor sign has obviously seen better days, but it’s amazing how well it’s held up considering how long it’s been here.
According to the uploader, the plastic letters have slowly dropped down over the course of 50 years.
That’s right, there’s a good chance that this sign is older than you.
Some of time’s changes are so common that we take them as a sign of progress through life.
For instance, we have this dalmatian puppy. While we can often get a sense of a dog’s relative age by its size, we can tell that this one is now a year old by how much its spots have grown.
Apparently, this piece of styrofoam has managed to sit here unnoticed for about four years.
And considering that we can see how a car has had to correct its drive out of the garage each day by the fact that it’s repeatedly driven over this, it’s surprisingly sturdy.
While we all know what effect the sun can have on our skin, it can also have a surprising influence on the things we surround ourselves with.
While it’s not so surprising to see the sun’s rays remove the color from something, it’s a different matter entirely for it to turn the green label on a cereal box blue.
Apparently, that took about a year.
This person has apparently buttered enough toast with this knife that the blade is now half as serrated as it used to be.
And yes, this is indeed a single use plastic knife, so this person likely ended up with a bunch of microplastics in their butter.
So no, I wouldn’t recommend letting it get like this.
This bumper sticker carries a whole new level to its message now that it’s experienced so much wear.
As we can faintly see in what remains of its red lettering, it says “facts matter.”
So, while they definitely still matter, their strength has been under some serious attack in recent years and this is accidentally very good at showing that.
Although we can sometimes see coins shrink when they end up in the dryer, the opposite fate apparently befell this penny.
Apparently, it spent enough time in the dryer through multiple uses that it ballooned into a wider shape than normal.
RELATED STORIES
The darkened color is a little easier to understand, though.
Sometimes, the way that our tools look can reveal a particular way that we do things.
For instance, the uploader’s grandmother obviously favors one side of her mouth over the other, if the way this fork has worn down is any indication.
This is an oddly beautiful and undeniably colorful piece, but it took years to make it this way.
What is it? Why, simply a piece of a wall that’s been painted over time and time again.
Our comfort should really come first.
This guy used his office chair so much the arms fell off! Or it came without arms. Regardless, the new one’s looking a lot nicer.
Inside and outside.
This is a new pair of soles next to a pair that’d been used for three years. With how old my boots are, I think they’re likely due for a new set now too.
Keeping it clean.
If you’re sweeping this much, your house must be spotless. I also feel like it reaches a point, though, where that broom on the left just…isn’t worth using anymore. Make things easier for yourself, replace your broom sooner.
Years and miles.
After 31 years, this user finally got a replacement key for their Astro van. Must be a well-loved and well-taken-care-of car to still be in proper use today!
The love of the game.
A dart scoreboard being replaced after being used twice a week for over 15 years. I’m shocked by two things: 1) the design never changed, and 2) you managed to keep score with the state the old one was in at all.
This fireplace has seen one too many winters.
This is one of those things that you never expect to wear down like this. It looks so hostile with all the ash too, like a medieval torture device.
Hard work. Extremely hard work.
Apparently this is this user’s glove after 15 hours of use. If you work a job where this is what your gloves look like after that short of a time, know that I appreciate you so much. You’re doing what a lot of us couldn’t.
Signs of love.
The same photo of the uploader’s mother, one from storage, and one that was kept in her husband’s wallet for almost 50 years. For that much time, it still looks pretty dang good, and is still a lovely photo!
A real page turner.
I think book wear is my favorite kind to see simply because I’m a book lover myself. The book on the left had already gone through years of use, but was finally being retired due to being rained on. It’s a painful loss, but a necessary one.
Fashion throwback.
These vans were bought at Warped Tour in 2006, which…yeah, makes sense. Apparently this user still wears them all the time for small jobs, but their friends have recently refused to let them wear them in public, which also makes sense.
No substitute indeed.
The keychain on the right had been on this user’s key ring for 16 years before he found a replacement, on which the statement really rings true.
Waiting patiently.
Spotted at a train station, the ground in front of this bench shows the history of people sitting and waiting for the train. Imagine all the panicked calls to work saying they’re going to be late this bench has witnessed.
There’s a reason that this plant has grown in such a bizarre way.
Plants tend to grow towards sunlight and water, and it seems that this one was getting neither for a while.
However, it continued to grow long after the uploader thought it was dead, so it ended up in this bizarre square shape as a result of renewed care.
Self comparison.
Another sun bleaching example, but this book had sat in a stack for years, easily seen by how the part that stuck out got majorly lightened.
His chair now.
This cat has been using this chair as a bed for 10 years now! The uploader assured in the comments that, yes, they do wash it regularly, it’s just so permanently warped from no one else sitting there besides the cat.
An easier climb.
This is a set of stairs that were naturally carved into this rock at Turkey Run State Park just from people climbing on it again and again. On one hand, this is very cool and shows the effects humans have on nature. On the other hand…this really shows the effects humans have on nature.
