This year’s focus

The five ages when time stops

This block is called A pause. At 5, 15, 30, 50 and 70, time stops and asks one question. Think about this person’s life and your own together, and leave a line if you like. At the end of the life you can say a few words to this person, which is a separate line from these five. The ✎ Pauses control in the ⋯ menu starts on. Its title is Pause at 5, 15, 30, 50 and 70 to write down a thought. Turn it off and the button reads ✎ Pauses off. What the question would have shown goes into the life record as one line. Tap ✎ Pauses to turn the questions back on.

When the focus chips change

This year’s focus is the panel in the middle of the life. The small label says Change it anytime. Before age 6 there is no chip. The panel says you are still a baby, being raised by your parents, that early moments add up and temperament settles by about five, and that from six you can choose the focus of each year. It also says that stretch can be skipped at 8×. The first time chips are available, a hint says to tap one to choose what this year goes into, and that if you leave it, it is chosen for you. If the stage changes and the chip you had picked is no longer there, the record says the life moved into a new stage and the heart went into the new chip. While looking for work, that line says so. When the old chip comes back, the record can say the heart went into it again.

One sitting, from the birth screen

1. Open the birth screen. Leave the world and the country draw as they are, or set them first. Length of one life is the group under those two.
2. Press About 30 min, leave About 1 hour pressed, or press About 1.5 hours. Read the hint. It is the time to live to that country’s life expectancy, not a promise that the life ends when the clock runs out.
3. Press Be born. On the birth certificate, read the pace line. Living to life expectancy takes about the length you pressed, and the line gives the seconds for one year. If you close the page, the life is saved in this browser and goes on when you come back in the same browser.
4. In the bar at the top, use Pause, a speed, or Next decision. Pause reads Resume while time is stopped. The age line shows 1 year ≈ N sec, and N shrinks as the speed rises. Next decision moves ahead to the next choice.
5. Open the ⋯ menu. On a phone that menu is the ⋯ button. Auto mode lets the decisions be made for you so you can watch. ✎ Pauses starts on. Music and the light or dark control sit in the same menu.
6. From age 6, tap a chip under This year’s focus, or leave the row and let the life choose. At 5, 15, 30, 50 and 70, answer the question or leave a line. At the end, you can say a few words to this person.

Pause, the six speeds, and Next decision

• The time controls are a group in the top bar: Pause, then 1×, 2×, 4×, 8×, 12× and 16×, then Next decision.
• 1× uses the seconds on the birth certificate. Each higher button divides those seconds, and the age line rounds the result. 8× is the speed the baby panel points at for the years before a focus exists.
• Next decision is the jump when you want the next school, work, love, move, or medical choice rather than a faster blur of every year.
• Auto mode is not one of the speed buttons. It is in the ⋯ menu, and its title says it lets decisions be made for you so you can watch. The focus chips stay on the page. If you never tap one, the year is chosen for you.

Why one year is not the same length everywhere

The seconds are fixed when the life is drawn. The length you pressed is divided by the life expectancy of the drawn sex. A figure under 60 years is counted as 60. The result is kept between 12 and 120 seconds, then rounded for the certificate and the age line. The rows below apply that rule to the women and men figures for these 141 birthplaces. A played life uses the sex-specific life table, so the certificate can differ by a second from that rounded figure.

At the one-hour length, those figures give a year of 41 to 60 seconds. 18 of the 282 sex-specific figures are under 60 years, and each of those is counted as 60. The shortest combined figure is Nigeria, 54.5 years (women 55.2 · men 53.8). The longest is Japan, 84.7 years (women 87.6 · men 81.6).

Life expectancy for all 141 birthplaces

What each chip says it does

The name is the chip. The small line under it is the direction written on the button. Status is four bars from 0 to 100: Health, Happiness, Knowledge, and Relationships. On the narrow bar they shorten to Health, Happy, Know, and Bonds. Income and money are not those bars. They show up in the small line of Focus on work and of Health care. When Knowledge is already 98 or higher, Study, Self-improvement, and Learning and keeping sharp change their small lines to Keep knowledge · Happiness↓, Keep knowledge · Promotion↑, and Keep knowledge and memory. Faith & service is left off the chips while the life is in North Korea, unless that life has already crossed into South Korea.

The question at each pause

Each age asks one of two questions. A few ages offer a suggested line you can keep. At five, the second question depends on the household. When the family is in the poorer part of a birthplace whose income per person is under $15,000, the suggested needs are a full stomach, clean water, and a way to go to school. Otherwise they are a grown-up who plays, a picture book at bedtime, and a yard to run in. The name in the question is the name the life was given.