The Time I Thought I Was Living

I have long felt that the time described by physics is not the same as the time I have lived. Physics speaks about time as if it were something clean and reliable, something that moves forward at a steady pace, never hesitating, never accelerating because of what anyone feels. In that world, time is a dimension like space. It bends around planets and stretches across the universe, but it does not care whether someone is happy or heartbroken. It does not slow down because someone is suffering, and it does not pause because someone wishes a moment would last forever. It simply moves.

But the time I have known has never felt so obedient.

There have been moments that seemed endless, even though they lasted only minutes. And there have been years that vanished so quickly that I struggle to understand where they went. There have been periods of my life that feel close enough to touch, even though they are far behind me, and others that feel like they never really happened at all. This difference between clock time and lived time has always disturbed me. It makes me wonder whether the time measured by clocks is only a small part of the time that truly defines a human life.

Science offers an explanation, though not a comforting one. Neuroscience tells us that the present moment, as we experience it, is not truly the present. The brain needs time to process what the senses receive. It collects signals, organizes them, and only then presents them to awareness. By the time I become aware of something, it has already happened. What I call “now” is already slightly in the past.

This means that I have never actually lived in the exact moment I believed I was living in. I have always been living in a version of it that my brain created a fraction of a second later. This realization quietly changes everything. It means that the present, which feels so real and solid, is already slipping away while I am trying to hold it.

This becomes even more obvious when I think about how time behaves during emotional extremes.

When I am in deep pain, time seems to stop moving. The outside world continues. People go on with their lives. Days turn into nights and nights into days. But inside, something refuses to move forward. The same thoughts repeat. The same feelings remain. It feels as if time has stopped carrying me and has left me behind. It becomes difficult to imagine that the future will ever feel different from the present.

And yet, there are other moments when the opposite happens.

There are moments so full, so alive, that I do not want them to end. In those moments, I stop thinking about tomorrow. I do not want time to move forward, because I know that when it does, the moment will become memory. And memory is never as complete as reality. It is only an echo.

What fascinates me is that both pain and joy change the way time feels. Pain stretches it. Joy compresses it. The clock does not change, but my experience of it does. This makes me realize that time, as I live it, is shaped by my attention. When I am fully present, time feels rich and meaningful. When I am distracted or numb, time disappears without leaving anything behind.

This leads to an unsettling thought. It is possible to live for many years without truly experiencing them. It is possible to exist without being fully present. In that sense, the length of a life cannot be measured only by the number of years lived. It must also be measured by how deeply those years were felt.

Memory makes this even more complicated. I often think of memory as something that preserves the past, but science shows that memory is not a perfect recording. Each time I remember something, I recreate it. My current thoughts and emotions shape how I see it. The past changes quietly, without my permission. Moments I thought were safe and permanent slowly become different from what they once were.

This means that time does not only take away the present. It also slowly changes the past.

Even my sense of self is not as stable as I once believed. The person I am today is not the same person I was years ago. My thoughts have changed. My fears have changed. My hopes have changed. When I look back, I sometimes feel as if I am looking at someone else.

This makes me realize that time does not only move my life forward. It also replaces the person who is living it.

This is why regret exists. Regret comes from knowing that certain moments are gone forever. Certain choices cannot be undone. Certain lives cannot be lived anymore. Time does not allow me to return and try again. It only allows me to continue.

And yet, this limitation is also what gives life its meaning.

If time were endless, nothing would matter. There would always be another chance. Every decision could be postponed. Every moment could be repeated. It is only because time is limited that moments become valuable.

Still, there is one truth I find difficult to accept. One day, my time will end. Everything I have seen, everything I have felt, everything I have thought, will stop. The world will continue, but I will not be part of it.

This thought does not feel dramatic. It feels quiet. It sits in the background of everything I do.

And yet, it changes how I see my life.

It makes me realize that I cannot control how much time I am given. But I can control how present I am within it.

I cannot stop time from moving. I cannot slow it down. I cannot go back. But I can choose to notice it while it is here.

Because in the end, my life is not just the time that passed.

It is the time I was awake enough to feel while it was passing.

Thanks for dropping by !

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Disclaimer : Everything written above, I owe to the great minds I've encountered and the voices I’ve heard along the way.