We live in the past. All of us.
Someone says something to you. You hear it. But by the time their words reach your ears, travel through your auditory nerve, and your brain stitches together meaning, that moment is already gone. You're not hearing the present. You're hearing a reconstruction of something that just happened.
The Delay in Everything
Think about light. It moves at roughly 300,000 kilometers per second. The fastest thing we know of. And yet, the sunlight hitting your face right now left the sun about eight minutes ago. You're not seeing the sun as it is. You're seeing where it was. Look further out. Some of the stars you see at night might not even exist anymore. You're watching ghosts. The sky is a museum, not a window.
Now bring it closer. Sound travels slower than light. When someone across the room speaks to you, there's a delay. Tiny, but real. Your brain adds more delay on top of that. It takes roughly 80 milliseconds just to process a sound once it hits your eardrum. Another few hundred milliseconds to turn it into language and meaning. By the time you understand what was said, the speaker has already moved on. Mentally, physically, temporally.
Even touch isn't instant. The nerve signals from your fingertips race to your brain at around 75 meters per second. Fast, sure. But not instantaneous. There's always a gap between what happened and when you know it happened.
So here's what I couldn't stop thinking about.
If everything coming at you from the outside world is delayed, then nothing external is truly now. Every sound you hear, every sight you take in, every sensation you feel. It's data from a moment that no longer exists. Your entire experience of the world is a highly convincing replay.
I wrote this article in the past. You're reading it now, but by the time you process these words, even “now” has slipped away. The present doesn't hold still long enough for anyone to grab it.
But, The One Exception
Your inner voice. That stream of thought running through your head right now. It's not traveling from somewhere else. It's not bouncing off surfaces or crossing distances. It doesn't need nerve fibers to carry it to your brain because it's already there. It's generated at the source.
When you listen to yourself, really listen, you're as close to the present moment as a human being can get. Everything else is secondhand. Your own thoughts are the only first-person, real-time feed you have.
Almost Physics
And maybe that's where confidence actually comes from. Not from ignoring what's around you, but from knowing that your own sense of things, your gut, your instinct, is the least delayed signal you'll ever have.
Trusting yourself isn't some motivational poster advice. It's almost physics. You are the closest sensor to your own present moment. Everything else is an echo.
And then it hit me. This is what people mean. “Live in the present.” “Listen to yourself.” I've heard these lines my whole life and nodded along like I understood. I didn't. I spent years searching for answers outside.
The present was never out there. It was always in here.