The Illusion of Time: Unraveling Perception, Deception, and Our Obsession with Its Power

This morning, I opened Threads and the first post I saw was from Bernice King. Her post shared color photos of her father, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, reminding us that it was not all that long along that he lived, led, and died. It felt as if I could reach out and touch those photos, feel the fabric of the clothes they wore, smell the flowers on the table, hear the sounds of the microphones cracking... a sensation that black and white photos fail to provide. It threw my brain into a spiderweb of thoughts about time itself and my own obsession with it.

March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, August 28, 1963.

How Time Shapes Our View of History

When I learned about the civil rights movement in school, it felt like studying something that happened long, long ago. Though we were learning about the events only about 30-ish years after they occurred, the black-and-white photos made it seem even more distant. In 2021, the BBC published an article on colorizing historical photos highlights how black-and-white images create a sense of separation from the past, making it feel less immediate and real. It made me realize that I knew exactly the color of Jackie Kennedy Onassis's dress when JFK was shot (pink), but I could not bring to mind a color photo or video from much else in the media during that time. Sure, some of this is because it was costly to produce color photos at that time, but with technology the way it is, there seems to be little excuse for why we reinforce use of disconnected reflections in current times.

This disconnect affects how we relate to history. When events feel far away, it’s easier to treat them as stories rather than ongoing struggles. Color photos bring a new dimension, reminding us that these moments involved real people with lives as vivid as ours. This shift in perception challenges the idea that time automatically creates distance or healing. Meanwhile, I sit here today, watching so many things happening as a warp speed and I'm left to wonder, will the color be removed from any of these events when we teach them in history class thirty years from now? Or will the inundation of real time news, alerts and glaring colors and flashes of light seer things create new illusions of what has been and what is?

The Deception of Time as a Healer

We often hear that "time heals all wounds," right along side the premise that "history repeats itself". The latter feels much more prevalent in this moment, almost creating a desire to revisit what has already happened before to try to understand how we create a different immediate future. Time, emboldened by this division from what happened "before", has clearly not healed the wounds of perceived or real generational traumas, instead, it seems to have created space for deeper division and skewed narratives.

All of this then complicated by our needs to align a cultural chaos with our personal journeys through the timeline we've been granted. Instead, healing requires action, reflection, and sometimes confrontation. Andy Warhol’s quote captures this perfectly:

"They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself." - Andy Warhol

Waiting for time to fix problems, or to leave the ugly things in the past behind us, can lead to stagnation. Whether it’s personal pain or social injustice, time alone, and the silence that often stands hand in hand with it, does not resolve issues. It’s what we do with time and how we use our voices that matters.

Time as a Construct We Created

In reality, time is a human invention, a system we use to organize life. One of the story lines in the movie Collateral Beauty explores time as both a thief and a gift, showing how our relationship with time is complex and emotional. We measure moments in seconds, days, and years, but these units don’t capture the full experience of living. We often long for more time, but then also wish that time would move faster, creating a gas and break whiplash to the ultimate point where the sand in our hourglass comes to it's last grain.

"The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." - Albert Einstein

This reminds us that time is not a fixed line but a fluid experience shaped by memory, anticipation, and perception. We often rush through life, obsessed with deadlines and schedules, or we wait endlessly for the "right moment." At one point, I counted the number of days from my current age to the age my dad was when he passed at 52 years old. I thought it empowered me, but instead it paralyzed me. I wondered what he would have done differently if at 40, he knew he's only have a set amount of time left, even less of it time where he was healthy.

When I quit my federal job in July, I kept telling myself, you can't take money with you when you go. You worked hard, your savings is yours to take this time to heal, recover, and find your path. And then, once my paychecks stopped and the first mortgage payment came due, I realized it was a nice premise to think, a much harder one to swallow. I procrastinated on logging into my back account or credit cards, afraid of what I might see. In the end, I learned how much I didn't need, cutting back spending and tapping into my word of the year for 2026 - Rediscovery - to use the abundance of what was around me to fill my cup whether that be energy, space or things long since boxed up and forgotten about that still had purpose.

The Pressure of Waiting and Rushing

Our culture values productivity and speed, pushing us to do more in less time. This obsession with rushing contrasts with the frustration of waiting, whether for healing, change, or answers. As someone who can catastrophize a situation in record speed, this was my superpower as a risk professional. I could summarize the worst consequences along with the best before most even wrapped their head around all of the variables. However, limitations to this is that time is not stagnant, and in a moment, every variable changes, creating that ever present ripple that shifts outcomes in unexpected ways.

"Time does not pass, it continues." - Marty Rubin

This suggests that time is ongoing and constant, not something that ends, escapes us or is lost. Understanding this can help us shift focus from trying to control time or freeze it, to focusing on meaningful actions within it.

What We Can Do About Our Relationship with Time

• Recognize time as a tool, not a master. Use time to structure your life but don’t let it dictate your worth or happiness.

• Actively engage with history and present challenges. Don’t let the illusion of distance make important issues feel irrelevant.

• Focus on change, not just waiting. Healing and progress require effort, not just the passage of time.

• Balance rushing and waiting. Learn when to push forward and when to be patient, understanding that time itself is neutral.

• Embrace the present moment. Since past, present, and future blur, grounding yourself in now can reduce anxiety about time.

  
  

Final Thoughts

I will always hold nostalgia for those times in life where things felt easier, less daunting, more known. But now I know that I must add an internal clause - they feel that way because I have lived them. They are validated, I know what they were and what they weren't. In those moments themselves, I most likely felt the same way I do today when I think about tomorrow.

Instead of counting down the next 11 years, when I'll turn the same age my father way when his time here was done, or instead of dwelling on how things were or could have been different, I hope to make the active choice to be grounded in this moment. To focus on action and not passiveness, to do more than exist, and to remove the blindfold that time can so seamless place on us in moment of fear.

It's not whether time is a thief or a gift, but how can we ensure they they are neither and both.

If you've made it this far, I challenge you - steal a moment and gift it. Maybe to yourself, to someone you love, to silence or to a scream. One single moment. For time continues no matter how hard we fight it and we must learn to make it meaningful in ways that speak to us, even if no one else understands.