Time is Soft Within Us

The Rhythms of Our Inner States

In our human experience, time is not a rigid physical constant, but a supple garment that adapts to our inner states. We measure it in mechanical seconds and hours, but it is felt as being conducted by the symphony of our emotions.

To make these inner rhythms tangible, here is the archive of our inner pacemakers. Every emotion carries its own unique speed:

Anger: The Frenzied Survival Mode

• Perceived Speed: High Speed
• The Experience: Blood pulses, focus narrows to the immediate threat, and the brain operates at full throttle. Everything feels fast, urgent, and impulsive. There is no room for lengthy deliberation, only the burning urge for immediate action.

Nervousness and Rushing

Time Shrinking

• Perceived Speed: Fluttering, oppressive, relentlessly slipping away
• The Experience: The panicky feeling of having no time. The internal clock is relentlessly outpacing the external one. The mind jumps erratically between to-dos, consequences, and anxieties about the future. One feels chased by hands that are always ticking too fast, while the present slips through one's fingers.

Grief: The Extreme Dilation of Time

• Perceived Speed: Sluggish and creeping
• The Experience: An emotion of withdrawal. Because we often passively endure grief instead of taking action, energy drains from the body. Days feel like endless epochs, and every hour stretches on inexorably.

Grief ### Anxiety and Panic: The Slow-Motion Effect

• Perceived Speed: Internal racing with external slow motion
• The Experience: A paradoxical state. Internally, everything is happening at top speed in an attempt to find a way out. However, the sheer volume of details being processed at breakneck speed makes the brief external moment seem like an eternity.

Boredom: The Sluggish Stagnation

• Perceived Speed: Heavy and sluggish
• The Experience: A lack of energy and external stimuli. The brain desperately seeks something to occupy itself. Lacking alternatives, full attention is focused on the passage of time itself, making each moment feel like a heavy stone.

Flow and Enthusiasm: The Time-Lapse Effect (The "Tunnel")

• Perceived Speed: Rapidly fast to the point of being imperceptible
• The Experience: Everything outside the focus channel fades away. The brain concentrates all its energy on the present task and silences the center for self-observation. Hours pass like mere minutes.

Awe and Wonder: The Expanse

• Perceived Speed: Vast and boundless
• The Experience: A moment of profound connection, perhaps in nature. The sense of time expands; one has the feeling of suddenly possessing a great deal of space and time, nestled in the infinity of the moment.

Bliss: Timeless Space

• Perceived Speed: Complete standstill of time
• The Experience: Nourished by awe and gratitude, all sense of lack ceases. There is no desire for "more" or "faster." Time loses its function as a measure, and only pure, desireless being in the perfect here and now remains.

Lyrics

Time is soft within us

[Intro] The inner clock has no face.

It listens.

[Verse 1] When anger bursts open the doors, every step races ahead.

A word becomes an answer before the breath is completely gone.

In grief, the afternoon lies like wet cloth on my hand.

The silent minutes grow heavy, no road leads faster through the land.

[Pre-Chorus] And fear holds a moment as wide as a hall.

In the mind, everything races furiously fast, outside the world stands still.

[Chorus] But time is soft within us, it takes on color.

What just seemed endless, then moves on quietly.

And when I no longer need to change anything, when gratitude liberates my vision, this breath remains entirely here— far beyond all time.

[Verse 2] In action, my edges disappear, my hands know what they are doing.

An entire morning becomes a bright, unnoticed now.

No looking ahead, no looking back, no mental counting on the side.

The hour falls out of its frame, and suddenly I am fully present.

[Pre-Chorus] Awe doesn't make the space bigger, gratitude adds nothing.

It silences the desire for "more," and within me there is peace.

[Chorus] For time is soft within us, it takes on color.

What just seemed endless, then moves on quietly.

And when I no longer need to change anything, when gratitude liberates my vision, this breath remains entirely here— far beyond any time.

[Bridge] The table, the light at the window, the warmth of a cup of tea.

Nothing needs to become perfect, nothing needs to be gone for me to see.

[Final Chorus] Time grows still within me, no measure holds me fast anymore.

I am at peace with the now, with everything it allows.

And when I no longer need to grasp anything, tomorrow loses its weight.

Only this desireless, clear being— and I need nothing more.

[Outro] Here.

In this breath.

Here.