Tempus non lineari

“Time is Nonlinear“

In recent months, time has begun to pulse. Each day feels impossibly different. One might pass like a single minute, while the next stretches endlessly, refusing to end.

And this sense of duration has nothing to do with what you’re doing. It could be a day filled with tasks, or consumed by one large endeavor— yet time moves on its own. Or rather, it doesn’t move—it leaps.

You might not age for years: calendar time marches forward, but your inner time stands still. You might age by years in mere days: your inner time outrunning the calendar. And you might grow younger, if the time of feelings flows backward, even as the calendar moves ahead. The body is less sensitive than emotion.

Everyone remembers primary school— forty-five minutes felt like eternity, the bell impossible to wait for. And the whole school period seemed the longest stretch of life. Someone at twenty felt ancient, and thirty was an unimaginable barrier— people didn’t live that long!

Somewhere in adolescence, we begin to feel time accelerate. Emotionally, each year passes faster. As children, the day never ended. By thirty, it flies. Then it stabilizes— the feeling of acceleration fades.

Life settles into a rhythmic uniformity. Days and years tick by. You no longer measure life in days, but in weeks and months. The rush is gone.

You open your email in the morning— and suddenly, it’s lunchtime. But not always.

Time can stop. The world remains, but you are elsewhere— in a transcendent state. In the mountains, in the middle of the ocean, beside someone you love. The clock on the wall spins madly, but for you, not even a minute has passed.

Time marks your life. A single moment might stretch infinitely— a decade might dissolve into fog.