26 Kasım 2019

In the flow of time

Time feels like a river flowing at the same pace for all of us… yet strangely, we each experience it differently. As children, a summer holiday seems endless; as adults, months pass in a blink. Why?

Psychology suggests that new experiences stretch time. For a child, every day is a discovery, so time feels slower. But as routines grow and days blur into one another, time feels compressed. Suddenly, another year has slipped away.

Technology reshapes our perception too. Notifications, endless content, the rush to the next thing—sometimes life feels like it’s playing in fast-forward. Yet in other moments, like when the internet freezes for a minute, each second feels unbearably long.

Philosophy reminds us that time isn’t only what we measure, but what we live. As Bergson said, "duration" is less about the ticking of a clock and more about the flow of consciousness. In other words, time is shaped not only on calendars but within our minds.

Maybe the key is not to control time, but to notice how we experience it. Because the real length of life isn’t in the years that pass—it’s in how deeply we live them.