In this issue, we feature our annual Ultimate Gift Guide, spanning the extraordinary, exclusive and extravagant

No, we are not imagining it. The year did fly by. And it will continue to do so next year, and the year after that; the speeding up of time seemingly more relentless as we grow older. However, this is no illusion. There is science to back it up.

“People are often amazed at how much they remember from days that seemed to last forever in their youth. It’s not that their experiences were much deeper or more meaningful, it’s just that they were being processed in rapid fire,” said psychologist and author Adrian Bejan.

Bejan posited in a 2019 paper that as our brains age, the information that we see and perceive travels through greater distances with more disruptions, no thanks to increasingly complex neuron networks. Because of the slowdown in the rate at which our eyes can obtain information and neural systems can process them, we store fewer visual snapshots and, as such, time appears to speed up. In other words, as we grow older, we see less and think too hard. This is why the years are have whizzed by.

First, the bad news: this is probably irreversible. The good news, however, is we can now be cognisant of how we’d like to stem its tide. A remedy, albeit temporary, would be to simply do the opposite: see and experience more—and think less.

Before you get the wrong idea, we are not to encouraging us to tear down the highway, scream “YOLO!” and yield wilfully to all material whims and pleasures. Rather, an intentional desire to enjoy the best of life with an open mind, we believe, is a more elegant solution.

For a start, you may peruse the 26 exceptional accoutrements and experiences within these pages. It is our annual Ultimate Gift Guide issue and we are confident that the recommendations—all extraordinary, exclusive and extravagant; spanning a private island buyout in the Maldives for the holidays to a one-of-a-kind heirloom-worthy guitar by a renowned luthier—will leave you inspired.

If you should land a preferred gift, whether for yourself or a loved one, be sure to take it all in and enshrine every iota of enjoyment. Live the moment, as they say, but also, make it last.

Enjoy the issue.

You may purchase the December 2023 issue as a hard or digital copy, or consider subscribing to us here