Before I Knew How to Look

I don’t think about the sky very often.

But when I do, it feels strangely unchanged —like a fixed reference point in a life that’s constantly accelerating.

Physics tells us that time isn’t universal.

According to the theory of relativity, time stretches and contracts depending on motion.

The faster you move, the less time you experience.

And maybe that’s why adulthood feels like this —not because time is speeding up, but because we are.

When you’re younger, life moves slowly.

You wait. You imagine. You sit still long enough for moments to settle.

Time has weight then.

I think about my classroom sometimes.

I was there, but only partially—caught between who I had been and who I was becoming. At the time, what I wanted was a camera. Not as an accessory or something to be noticed, but as a way to hold onto things as they were—to fix a moment in place, to give weight to experiences that would otherwise pass too quickly.

I used to think that one day, when I could afford it, I would start documenting life properly—as if clarity were something money unlocked.

I didn’t realize I was already inside the frame. That the memory was forming in real time, unaware of its own importance—like light hitting a sensor, unnoticed until it’s developed later.

I have one now. It was a gift, probably sitting in the corner of a cupboard. I understand apertures and lenses, frame rates—how slowing the shutter lets more light in, how stillness is required to capture detail.

But I don’t have the one thing photography demands most: time.

Or maybe it’s stillness.

Because life doesn’t pause long enough anymore.

Days blur. Weeks compress.

Everything feels like it’s shot on fast-forward —no long exposures, no room for focus.

It doesn’t feel like a loss, exactly.

More like a trade-off.

Because being busy is not a failure of time —it’s evidence of participation.

Motion implies engagement.

To be pulled in many directions means there is something asking for your presence.

From a physical standpoint, acceleration isn’t decay; it’s energy applied.

And maybe that’s what this phase of life is —not time slipping away, but time being actively used.

Nothing dramatic happened.

No singular event marked the shift.

Change arrived the way physical processes usually do —gradually, through accumulation rather than impact.

The world itself remains mostly unchanged.

But my frame of reference hasn’t.

And in physics, that distinction matters.

Observation is never neutral; it’s shaped by motion, position, and perspective.

What feels like time speeding up may simply be a consequence of constant movement.

A life lived in acceleration leaves little room for measurement.

No pauses, no long exposures — only compressed intervals mistaken for absence.

Perhaps that’s the real adjustment of adulthood: learning that clarity doesn’t come from control, and meaning doesn’t require documentation.

Some moments resist being captured not because they lack significance, but because they exist entirely in motion.

And maybe understanding that isn’t a loss at all.

Just a change in reference frame —where meaning isn’t found in pauses alone,

but in motion that’s worth sustaining.

Purnima