Is time really moving fast or are we just caught up in a modern way of life that makes us think time is moving fast?
First of all, how do we even know that time is actually moving fast outside of the modern world we live in right now?
I think that would be the hardest part to answer in this question because we are so deeply stuck inside our current way of living that we don't have a neutral place to stand where we can measure our experience fairly.
A possible option could be to find a place where the modern world hasn't reached with its constant need to stay connected, get things done quickly, and use artificial lights that cut us off from natural day and night cycles.
The modern world is mostly built around phones and computers, tight schedules for getting work done, and the need to answer everything right away.
These elements create what could be called "time squeeze", as in the feeling that everything must happen faster and more smoothly than our bodies and minds naturally want to work.
Unless we can temporarily pull ourselves away from these influences, a place without much of these things is almost impossible to find in our connected world.
But also, one could take any natural place that has kept much of its wild nature such as an old forest or a mountain area that hasn't been developed and just spend some time there without any doors back into the modern world.
No smartphones or digital devices in general that break up our attention and create "fake urgency".
Then get to a city or wherever the main signs of modern time pressure are clearly present.
Spend some time there too, taking in the rush of traffic, perceived pressure to do many things at once, and the general feeling of always being in a hurry.
Now, compare and contrast between these two experiences, hopefully in a place that's not too much tilted towards one extreme or the other.
Experience Of Time
Truth be told, it has been awhile since I've done this practice. The subject of the practice is the main problem here, not much time to go around watching how time itself acts in different places.
With this side-by-side approach, it is at least clearly obvious that time feels different between a natural place and our technology-filled environments.
The former seems to stretch out, as in you can actually feel the present moment spreading out and your attention can settle into deeper rhythms that match the movement of your surroundings, maybe clouds drifting.... or the gentle sway of trees.
I'm a bit skeptical about whether we can fully separate how time appears to our minds from how it actually flows.
Because given that our minds are hardly at rest, appearance of time is also constantly skewed in a way.
Think about this for a bit. Native cultures that stayed closer to natural cycles often had completely different ways of talking about time.
I'm guessing here that many had no word like our idea of "wasting time" or "saving time" as that would be completely foreign to a rhythm-based understanding of existence.
If you by extension live in a world that operates 24/7, then it wouldn't be illogical to develop what we could call "time worry", which is a constant feeling that time is both running out and speeding up.
But actually, this could well be more about the quality of your attention than the actual speed of time itself.
Still, I do believe time has moved up a notch in terms of speed irrespective of this modern world at the center of the equation. This belief however is based on a gut feeling, not on any measurable evidence I can point to.
Thanks for reading!! Share your thoughts below on the comments.