Why time seems to go by faster and faster everyday...

What if time goes by faster… because we no longer create?

Recently, a friend told me: "Honestly, it's scary how fast time seems to go by. I feel like the year just started and we're already in December." And honestly, I feel the same way. You probably do too. More and more of us are saying it.

Thinking about it a little, I remembered a concept from the theory of special relativity that I had studied a few years back that could explain this feeling. And I thought I absolutely had to tell you about it.

Einstein established a rather unsettling principle: in the universe, you are always moving at the speed of light.

"Wait, how can I be going at 300,000 km/s while sitting down?"

Not through space, no. But through spacetime. Your total speed through spacetime is always equal to c (the speed of light). And this speed is distributed between two axes: movement through space and movement through time.

Mathematically, it looks like this:

A kind of cosmic Pythagorean theorem. And the consequence is mind-blowing: the more you move through space, the less speed you have left for time — and time slows down for you. This is Einstein's famous time dilation:

If we were to study this distribution for a photon, for example, its time doesn't flow at all since it travels at the speed of light. All of its speed is used in space and 0% in time.

Now, flip the logic: if you don't move at all through space, all your speed goes into time. Time flows through you at full throttle. Without brakes.

It's true that at the scale of our human movements, the actual physical effect is negligible. But let's set that aside, because what matters here is the metaphor.

Look at the numbers. The WHO tells us that 1.8 billion adults worldwide are physically inactive. In France, 8 out of 10 adults spend more than 3 hours a day in front of a leisure screen. The average sedentary time for a French adult: 7 hours a day. For office workers, it goes up to 12 hours sitting when you include commuting.

We are a generation that moves less and less and is very rarely in motion. So a large majority of our speed is allocated to time, which therefore flows faster.

On the other hand, think about your own experiences. When you travel, when you create something, when you throw yourself into a project that's a little beyond you, time slows down. The days are dense. You remember everything.

And when you scroll, when you chain together identical days at work, when you consume passively, time disappears. September, January, March… it all blurs together.

This is exactly what the equation tells us: less movement in space, more movement in time.

And I'm not just talking about physical movement. I'm talking about creating, building, and experiencing. Working on something meaningful. Exploring the real world instead of scrolling the virtual one. Learning, building, engaging.

Each of these actions is a way to reinvest your speed budget into space — and to reclaim time from time.

c is fixed. It's a constant. The only thing you control is the distribution. And right now, if you feel like time is flying by too fast, maybe it's a sign that your spatial component is at its lowest. That you're too still. That it's time to let go of the distractions, the endless scrolling, the routine that numbs you — and to gradually convert your temporal speed back into spatial speed.

A fixed budget is already given to you. The question isn't how much you have. It's how you choose to spend it.

Worth pondering…