Time passes in a very unusual manner.
Sometimes it is linear, but sometimes it moves erratically; speeding up and slowing down, almost simultaneously. One moment you are young, agile, full of life. Then, in a blink of an eye you have slowed your pace, you have aches and fatigue. Ageing is not kind.
Things seem to change so quickly. It is hard to imagine. Deep inside, you are the same as when you were a teen. But outside, your grey facade tells an alternate story. Not a story that you know well but seem to accept nonetheless.
You are seen differently too.
The Moment Between
I blinked.
Not a dramatic pause, not a turning point marked by ceremony, but a simple, ordinary moment. Yet in that instant, something had shifted. Life had quietly moved forward, indifferent to whether I was ready to follow.
There is a peculiar realization that comes with reflection. It is the awareness that time does not announce its passage. It does not knock or ask permission. It simply unfolds, one moment layered upon the next, until the distance between what was and what is becomes impossible to ignore. What feels like continuity is, in truth, a series of small departures.
The Subtle Disappearance
The most profound changes in life rarely arrive with noise. They emerge through subtle transformations that escape our notice in real time. A voice deepens. A routine fades. A familiar presence becomes less frequent, then absent.
We assume permanence in the ordinary. That assumption becomes our blind spot. The daily rhythms that feel stable are, in fact, in motion. Each repetition is slightly different from the last, quietly moving us forward. Yet we do not feel this movement because it is gentle, almost imperceptible.
Only when we pause and look back do we recognize how much has changed. The realization does not come as a shock, but as a slow, settling truth. Something once close is now distant. Something once constant has become memory.
Memory as a Second Lens
Memory has a way of reshaping time. It compresses years into fragments, reducing long stretches of living into a handful of vivid impressions. What was once expansive becomes condensed, almost fleeting.
This creates a paradox. While life is lived in detail, it is remembered in essence. The richness of experience is filtered, leaving behind only what resonated most deeply. In this process, we often discover that the moments we now value were not the ones we recognized as significant at the time.
Reflection introduces clarity, but it also carries a quiet weight. It reveals that awareness often arrives after the moment has passed. We see more clearly, but only from a distance.
The Nature of Presence
To understand the feeling behind the passage of time is to confront the limits of attention. It is not that we are careless. It is that life unfolds faster than our ability to fully absorb it. Even in our most attentive states, we cannot capture everything.
Presence, then, is not about perfection. It is about intention. It is the act of noticing, even briefly, the texture of a moment. The sound of a voice. The expression on a face. The atmosphere of a place that feels ordinary, yet will not always be so.
When we are present, we do not stop time. We deepen it. We create anchors that allow memory to hold more than just fragments.
The Quiet Realization
There comes a moment when the passage of time is no longer abstract. It becomes personal. It is felt in the spaces between memories, in the contrast between who we were and who we have become.
This realization is not meant to create urgency or regret. It is meant to shift perspective. To recognize that life is not something that happens later, or elsewhere. It is happening now, in moments that seem too small to matter.
The truth is simple, though not always easy to accept. What we overlook today becomes what we long for tomorrow.
A Different Way of Seeing
To say “I blinked” is to acknowledge both the brevity of time and the depth of experience. It is not an admission of failure, but an awakening.
Once you become aware of how quickly moments pass, you begin to see them differently. You linger a little longer. You listen more closely. You recognize that what feels ordinary is, in fact, irreplaceable.
Life does not slow down. It never has.
But your awareness can expand.
And in that expansion, even the briefest moment begins to feel complete.
EYES, from top to bottom
Cover Image, my own eye, with some flourishes.
Within the article: 1st eye, my sister, Marian, 2nd eye, my friend, James, third eye, my friend Janis, fourth eye, my friend, Daniela, fifth eye, my high school sweetheart, Karin, sixth eye, my high school friend, Bob.
Did you recognize any of these eyes?
About the Author:
Michael Martin is the Vice President of Technology with Metercor Inc., a Smart Meter, IoT, and Smart City systems integrator based in Canada. He has more than 40 years of experience in systems design for applications that use broadband networks, optical fibre, wireless, and digital communications technologies. He is a business and technology consultant. He was a senior executive consultant for 15 years with IBM, where he worked in the GBS Global Center of Competency for Energy and Utilities and the GTS Global Center of Excellence for Energy and Utilities. He is a founding partner and President of MICAN Communications and before that was President of Comlink Systems Limited and Ensat Broadcast Services, Inc., both divisions of Cygnal Technologies Corporation (CYN: TSX).
Martin served on the Board of Directors for TeraGo Inc (TGO: TSX) and on the Board of Directors for Avante Logixx Inc. (XX: TSX.V). He has served as a Member, SCC ISO-IEC JTC 1/SC-41 – Internet of Things and related technologies, ISO – International Organization for Standardization, and as a member of the NIST SP 500-325 Fog Computing Conceptual Model, National Institute of Standards and Technology. He served on the Board of Governors of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) [now Ontario Tech University] and on the Board of Advisers of five different Colleges in Ontario – Centennial College, Humber College, George Brown College, Durham College, Ryerson Polytechnic University [now Toronto Metropolitan University]. For 16 years he served on the Board of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Toronto Section.
He holds three master’s degrees – in business (MBA), communication (MA), and education (MEd). As well, he has three undergraduate diplomas and seven certifications in business, computer programming, internetworking, project management, media, photography, and communication technology. He has completed over 80 next generation MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) [aka Micro Learning] continuous education programs in a wide variety of topics, including: Economics, Python Programming, Internet of Things, Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive systems, Blockchain, Agile, Big Data, Design Thinking, Security, Indigenous Canada awareness, and more.