One of my favorite things about taking public transportation to work instead of driving is having that time each day to read. You can always tell a commuter on the CTA because they’ll have a book in their hand. A couple weeks ago I found myself at the office without anything to read on my way home. Sure, I could have braved the below-zero temperatures that day and gone to the book store, but lucky for me I know of a few places around the office to find something to read. So, I went to a friend of mine, and asked her if she had anything I could borrow.

Einstein’s Dreams isn’t a particularly long book. It took me just a couple days to read using only my time on the bus, which is relatively short. The language isn’t difficult either. It is, however, incredibly interesting and thought provoking. The book isn’t a factual depiction of dreams that Einstein actually had. Instead Lightman used Einstein as a tool to look at different ways time could exist and how that might affect the world.

One particularly interesting chapter for me says that time moves slower the higher you are. As a result everybody lives on mountains and puts their houses on stilts, only coming down when absolutely necessary. “Height has become status. When a person from his kitchen window must look up to see his neighbor, he believes that neighbor will not become stiff in the joints as soon as he, will not lose his hair until later, will not wrinkle until later, will not lose the urge for romance as early.” How can you read that and not translate it to the world we actually live in?

There are so many different ways we could have ended up at this very moment. So many decisions and possibilities. Time is a mysterious thing and maybe it is different for me than it is for you. Grab a copy of Einstein’s Dreams, head down to your local coffee shop, and spend a Sunday reading and thinking about all the directions time may travel in.